Damian Rises
by hauntedlittledoll
Summary: Robin never truly dies . . . a collection of fix-it prompt fills in honor of Robin 5.0 . . . Damian Wayne.
1. We Will Mend

Written for **tharrow** — "Damian ends up being sent back in time to his younger body?"

* * *

Damian tried to pitch himself upright, but his limbs refused to obey any command.

It didn't hurt anymore, and Damian had never fully bought into that comforting tripe surrounding the notion of death. If Damian was to be was trapped by a useless body for all eternity, it should at least come with the satisfaction of pain.

He doubled his efforts.

"Master Damian! Stop, you must _stop_, young Master!" Pennyworth's voice cracked out of the darkness to his left, and Damian recoiled from the curt demand.

This could not be. Pennyworth had been left behind in the Cave, and Damian could not possibly have recovered from the wounds inflicted by the Fatherless.

Yet, as the darkness receded, Pennyworth was indeed looming over Damian, his strong hands pressing Damian down firmly into a mattress. As it turned out, Damian's body was not entirely useless, simply heavy and uncoordinated. When Damian calmed, Alfred's hands left his chest to frame a cheek and smooth Damian's damp hair back from his forehead.

"There's a good lad. Just a dream, Master Damian. We'll have you home again soon."

_Home again_—as in, _not there now_. Damian's eyes had drifted shut, but they flew open again to take in the opulent nature of the room. Damian was in one of his mother's compounds, and he could tell by the butler's alarmed expression that Damian's heart rate had spiked a second time.

"We have to get out of here, Pennyworth," Damian tried to talk around the thick feeling of his tongue and the soreness of his throat. "We need to leave right now."

"My dear boy, you have just had major spinal surgery," Alfred murmured, taking Damian's hand from where it flopped uselessly among the bed-linens. "It will be some time yet before you can travel."

Spinal surgery … one of Mother's long-since compromised compounds … and a foggy memory of an elderly hand resting across his brow—the Flamingo incident.

Damian was very nearly two years in the past, before his Mother's betrayal and pursuit of Father and before Father had even returned from his own adventure in time. Apparently time shenanigans ran in the Wayne bloodline.

Damian would not question that which he benefitted from. He was alive and recovering from an injury that seemed laughable by comparison … in a room only a few floors above the lab where his replacement was being cared for by mere machines for one purpose and one purpose alone—a Robin's murder.

Damian shoved the thought away and ignored the phantom pain that sprang to his chest; the son of Batman refused to be cowed by a mere fetus.

"I want to go home," Damian whispered, struggling to keep the drugs from pulling him back under. He couldn't stay here now—not at his Mother's mercy with the knowledge of everything to come. "Take me home, Pennyworth … _Please_."

Pennyworth frowned, and there was that worn hand against Damian's brow.

"It's not safe here. I need … need to tell …" Damian couldn't find the words as the darkness began to descend once more; there was simply too much to explain, and no guarantee that Pennyworth would understand or believe him. He needed … "Batman."

Pennyworth understood somehow, because when Damian woke up to the opulent room a second time, Grayson was waiting in full costume by his Robin's bedside instead of causing havoc in England.

* * *

_"Gentles, do not reprehend: if you pardon, we will mend."_

_-Puck; William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer-Night's Dream"_


	2. No Power in the 'Verse Can Stop Me

Written for **kiragecko** — _"Talia ordered the attack because she knew there was no other way to get her son back. Damian was whisked away to her creepy hospital thing where she healed his spine, and is all better. But Dick and Bruce aren't that easy to trick. And Tim knows far more about al Ghul bases than she expected."_

* * *

Tim is many things—a fool is not one of those things.

A missing body? Any self-respecting geek can see that gimmick coming from a mile away.

If Talia thought that she could trick a family of detectives, then she deserved to have the entirety of the capes-and-tights community rain down upon all of her projects. Let the Outsiders prey on the Man-Bat colony in England. Let the Teen Titans rearrange her interests in every major American city from New York to Metropolis. Let the Justice League chase her across every continent while Gotham's own _villains_ raise hell amongst the League's local resources.

The message was clear.

_Not him. Not one of ours. Not our child. Not again._

Batman, Inc. has played its own role in the chaos of the last few weeks, agents from every corner of the globe actively battling Leviathan's forces back, barricading them behind an unstoppable wall made of four heroic generations. Heroes have come out of retirement for this—Jay Garrick and Stephanie Brown fight side-by-side. Allies from across the multiverse have been summoned, and Tim's own doppleganger is leading a new generation of young Titans that will never rise on this earth including the respective daughters of Nightwing and Arsenal. They all fight together as a cohesive force, petty fights and grudges forgotten.

Sometimes, the lone hero tends to forget that they are not actually alone—that other heroes will come if asked … but this is not one of those times.

Talia has made the first move, and Batman, Inc. cannot be faulted for countering.

Talia has the benefit of thousands of years and an organization of the damned. Batman, Inc. has Timothy Drake-Wayne.

And Red Robin is infiltrating this base solo as his friends create the ultimate worldwide net of diversions—this base, one of the oldest and most sacred, a base that no one outside the al Ghul family had ever entered.

Except for Timothy, the young detective, at Ra's request once upon a time.

Tim leaves the fools in charge and slips in through the cracks, as invisible as always. Tim makes his way through the elegant home to Talia's personal chambers as the sounds of her confrontation with Superman filters through Tim's comlink. Talia cannot throw off the Man of Steel's pursuit, his perfect hearing locked upon the unique sound of her heartbeat, the soft arrogance in her tone, and the snarl of frustration held back from mortal ears. Talia is so concerned with the hero of heroes that Tim can wander at his leisure through her home.

He finds Damian in a prison of wealth, stolen and discarded amongst other treasures.

The little demon opens his eyes and scowls. "Finally."

Tim pushes the boy back amongst the pillows, fingers flying down the buttons of the younger boy's Oxford. The still-angry wound is scarring heavily, but it is healing. The marks of battle litter the small form, but they are healing too. Judging by the amount of squirming that Tim's victim is currently accomplishing, the damage to his ribs and spine has been greatly reduced through the miracle of Talia's questionable medical practices. The boy is clearly stiff and still weak, but his organs are somehow whole, and Damian is …

"Alive," Tim manages, bringing a hand to his ear as he relayed the message. "He's alive. Robin flies."

Alfred's response is immediate—a fervent prayer of thanksgiving. Steph's choked-off sob is lost under Jason's exuberant burst of profanity _("You hear that, motherfuckers! Robin motherfuckin' flies!")_ and Dick's frantic questions. The overwhelming sense of relief saps Tim's legs of strength; he sits abruptly on the bed next to Damian as the whole Bat-Family tries to assimilate the knowledge that their secret hope and fear is true.

Damian has survived.

Dick is still demanding more information about Damian's status, and Tim pries the earpiece free. "Ask him yourself, Dick," Tim instructs, fitting it to Damian. The little brat colours under the attention, but his voice still manages to balance relief with smug satisfaction as Damian reassures the others.

"Really, it as though you expect anything else of my Father's son …" Damian began, returning the ear piece and finding himself yanked into an unexpected hug. For a moment, there is complete silence which Tim cherishes. Then Damian takes a deep breath and with hitherto never before seen depths of patience, warns: "Drake if you do not get off me in the next four seconds, I shall break both your arms."

And that was the baby-assassin they all inexplicably loved.

Tim releases Damian, and removes his cape to drape around the younger boy's shoulders. It's a ridiculous cape, but if Damian makes so much as a single feather quip, Tim has two words for him in return.

_Red. Bird._

Damian does not comment, merely curls into the offered cloak and holds out his arms. Tim turns and crouches, allowing Damian to hike himself up piggyback style. They are leaving and if anyone should try to stop them … Tim has the Red Hood's back-up weapon in his belt.

Like another holy Book, the Bat-Code had some mighty specific things to say about killing. Also guns. But like that other Book, the Code was a trifle fuzzier on the subject of knee-caps.

Damian's grip around his neck tightens as they leave the room: "Mother says she just wants me back."

Tim reaches up to squeeze the small dark hands. "She can't have you."

* * *

_"No power in the 'Verse can stop me."_

_-River Tam; Joss Whedon's __Firefly_


	3. I'll Be Back

Written for **causedmetolol** — _"Spinal implants let Damian download Cylon-style into a new body, then he rescues himself, b/c al Ghul's spit in death's face."_

* * *

_He's like the grave-robbing doctors of old, the man reassures himself, as he digs up the grave of a child. He does this for his craft, for advancement of medical knowledge. He does this because that spine is too beautiful a creation to decay in a casket with Talia's flawed experiment. He comforts himself throughout the surgery because for once he's not killing anything that isn't already dead._

_He has a stock pile of Talia's experiment, and it's not like any of them are any use to the Head of Leviathan now._

_With the spine intact in its new body and recovering in the vat of sickly red, the doctor throws the switch to the great machine—the one that the lesser Batman thought destroyed. For a split second, the doctor congratulates himself on the assuredly comfortable future that he will now have._

_Then the clone's eyes fly open and in a swift move, the oxygen mask is ripped off._

_That's when the doctor makes his mistake; he opens the tube in a panic about his creation drowning and somehow still suffering the delusion that the clones are all as brain-dead as the day they were genetically engineered. He doesn't expect the boy to twist free of the confines, and somehow stand before delivering a shaky roundhouse kick that takes the man out of the equation for the foreseeable future._

_So much for the second-coming of Dr. Frankenstein._

* * *

Damian has to sit down, slumped back against a cabinet in a puddle of unidentifiable liquid only a few feet away from a doctor that he had always despised. A hand rests against his torso, covering the non-existent wound that makes his traumatized nervous system scream. The body is as familiar as his own if noticeably lacking the scars that had come to define Damian as both Robin and a Wayne.

It had been a long-shot, but Damian has long suspected there were other clones out there.

Once his mother had shown him that the technology exists—how simple it is for her to replace him—pieces began to slot together about the countless operations that Damian has had over the years. His mother has replaced major organs, the spine, other bones and body parts from a few traumatic events during his childhood training that seemed so little at the time. The replacement parts have always been available, always the right age, size, blood-type and somehow perfect for his body every time.

He fights down nausea when he wonders how many of his 'twins' have been sacrificed to keep Damian in mint condition. This body is empty. Nothing fights his command of it, and Damian is unsure if the spine his mother had devised to contain him has replaced the boy that once occupied this skin or if perhaps this body is the original owner of the spine and somehow maintained without it.

The spine has been altered to contain him, to pull Damian out and allow someone else in, why should it not work the other way around?

It does.

Damian begins to search the lab on shaky feet, pausing only long enough to wrap himself in the doctor's spare lab coat. It hangs to Damian's shins, but beggars cannot be choosers. He avoids the operating room and the gross parody of an autopsy in favor of another room with nine tubes like the one that Damian just crawled out of.

The boys within share his face.

Damian throws up. Just the once, and he wonders what kind of nourishment the clones have been getting that he can suffer this simple response. Then he gets up again, and approaches the first tube. The various medical charts and steady machines assure him that every last clone is without brain activity. The bodies are maintained by science and the sheer will of the outside world rather than any sense of self-preservation.

Any one of them could have become a monster like the Fatherless.

Any one of them could have become a boy like Damian.

They could have done anything, been anyone, but their mother has stripped them of that possibility … that future. To her, they are just dolls. Just like Damian.

Damian laughs until he cries. Then he gets up, and turns off the life-support to each machine. Damian is his own closest relative, and he will not take another body like this. He will not become his Grandfather.

Damian re-enters the main lab, and closes the security door firmly behind him. He does the same for the door to the operating room, and ties up the unconscious doctor with a few repurposed power cords. He destroys the machine, now understanding Grayson's fury at the inanimate metal. Then he takes an energy bar and bottle of water from the man's office fridge, steals a personal laptop, and makes his way to the roof of the otherwise empty building.

Once there, Damian is relieved to find wireless and somewhat recognizable surroundings. He hails Titans Tower and asks the stunned Super-clone to come pick him up. Damian has things to learn before he can go home.

* * *

_"Stay here; I'll be back."_

_- The Terminator; __Terminator 2: Judgment Day_


	4. If the Apocalypse Comes, Beep Me

Written for **robintonightwing** – _"Just an idea but Kara does have super-hearing like Superman I think, maybe she heard Damian in trouble and came over to help? They did work in Pre-reboot and became kind of love-hate friends…"_

* * *

Somehow Damian manages to close his eyes in the face of imminent death, but the sword never falls.

"He asked you to stop," an authoritative voice rings out—imperial command and implicit scolding all in one.

Damian's eyes pop open again and there is the alien. She hovers defensively before Damian with the Fatherless held loftily above by the throat. Clearly, the flaming weapon has glanced uselessly off her invulnerable skin. She gives the hulking form a gentle shake like it is a disobedient pet, and stares disapprovingly at the masses around them.

"He asked you to stop," she repeats angrily and the righteous anger of a Super is a terrifying thing when one has expected only the secret justice of Gotham's bats. Leviathan has crossed a line, and brought more than Batman, Inc. down upon itself.

Damian's supposed-murder is a show, he belatedly realizes. Horrified civilians that can't bring themselves to flee, the armies of Leviathan, his incapacitated brothers and father … somewhere his mother is watching the play that she has written out long ago. And now everything has gone awry.

Supergirl sighs, pitches the Fatherless casually upwards and throws a punch that puts the man through yet another wall. He does not get up again, although Damian is certain that he will heal and Mother may or may not use him again. Damian's every incarnation is a disappointment to her, and the hurting little boy can't bring himself to be sorry for it any longer. She has used him—over and over again—as a weapon against his Father and Gotham.

Her arrival was off-script. The meta was not one of Father's, no native of Gotham, or agent of Batman, Inc. In this instance and for no other reason, the loyalty of his rescuer is to Damian, himself.

"Thank you."

Supergirl accepts his gratitude and lowers herself to the ground. "It's time to get you home, Robin," she reprimands softly, carefully gathering up his broken body in her arms. She's not that much bigger than him, but much stronger than she looks. "Alfred should see to these wounds."

"The others," Damian protests, but it's groundless. The Fatherless has been dealt with. Ellie and the box are finally safe. Damian can see from here that Todd has somehow escaped his mother's grasp and Cain has arrived with reinforcements. Now, Damian's father has cleared the steps at long last, and the tide has turned.

Damian was supposed to have died; there is no plan beyond this point for Leviathan.

The alien flies Damian over to his father, and Batman hugs both Supergirl and Robin to his chest. Then his father kisses the top of Damian's head before all of Gotham, and the little hero has never been so relieved to wear a mask.

"I'll take him home," Kara promises sweetly, taking to the air once released. "You should help Nightwing and Red Robin. I'll keep him safe until you have finished up here," she adds, ignoring Damian's growl.

Batman nods. The words "thank you" are rare from the costumed man, but Bruce Wayne isn't the only one to like making grand gestures.

"Metas have never been welcome in Gotham City, Supergirl. You always will be."

* * *

_"If the apocalypse comes, beep me."_

_- Buffy Summers; Joss Whedon's __Buffy the Vampire Slayer_


	5. One Trick Ahead of Disaster

Written for **mgnemesi** – _"I. Uhm. Can think of a few things, but it'd like Jason to do the saving, so… Lazarus Pit?"_

* * *

Talia made one mistake in her grand plan.

She had her son bring the body of the failure back to her.

It was disquieting to see her Beloved in such terrible condition after fighting the Fatherless, but Talia stayed her worthy son's hand at the last moment. She allowed Bruce's orphans to recover him and the upstanding Commissioner to provide emergency medical treatment. After all, she did not wish her Beloved to die.

No, Talia merely wanted the certainty that came with Damian's small body in his twin's arms. She wanted to be certain that it was finished, that there was no going back now, and that finally, Bruce would suffer appropriately for his choices.

Talia brought the body of her failed son back for closure, but she had forgotten one thing.

Jason Todd—"Wingman"—was also her captive … and the poor boy had never done well with dead Robins.

Distracted as she was, Talia left the unconscious man with the dead child in the same room while she took her dinner and a comforting walk in the garden with her living son. They had not gone far when the alarm was raised, and Talia knew long before she reached her quarters that neither of Bruce's sons would be there.

One small fact that never changed no matter which al Ghul residence one examined: there was always, _always_ a Lazarus Pit on the premises.

Jason had a dangerous knowledge of the Lazarus Pit, and a moral compass only vaguely in tune with the Bat. He also had a six minute lead, and with his stolen knowledge, Jason only ever needed three.

Father had always said that Talia's pets would be her downfall, she remembered, as she stared across the Lazarus Pit to the man she had helped mold and long-since discarded. Now the Lazarus green of Jason Todd's eyes are fixed on Talia as he clutched her son to his chest, the damaged child wrapped firmly in a repurposed cape that did nothing to disguise the boy's equally haunting green gaze.

They were undermanned; Talia used up precious resources in today's battle and the threat of vengeance had seemed negligible. The remaining lackeys are worse than useless, and Talia's only defense is her good son who charges in expectation of battle.

The hero of the piece didn't even grant the poor creature that. Jason _leapt_ over the rushing two hundred pound mass of muscle and armor. The infuriating man simply slapped a hand down across her son's helmet and hopped the moving human barricade like a fence with Talia's failure still clasped in his other arm, before sprinting down the hall. Talia knew he would make it out; he'd escaped her grasp more than once fresh from the Lazarus Pit and mad with revenge.

Jason has always been so hell-bent on survival, Talia remembered as she stared after him. She had taught him to pick and choose battles. She had taught him to plan ahead and to keep his enemies close. She had taught him to set the stage for the story he wanted to tell. She had _never_ been able to subvert or twist his survival instinct in her favor.

* * *

_"One trick ahead of disaster. They're quick, but I'm much faster."_

_-Aladdin; "One Jump Ahead"_


	6. Sequel - If Only They'd Look Closer

Sequel to **One Trick Ahead of Disaster**.

* * *

Damian despised dreaming. Fruitless activity that it was—as apt to go horribly wrong as it was to pleasantly pass the night—and his latest dreams were always clouded with the vivid green of the Lazarus Pit.

Somehow knowing they were the result of his resurrection didn't make them any less horrific.

Damian snapped out of the latest one to find himself on the couch with some ridiculous cartoon playing in the background. He shoved himself away from Todd with his feet and fell off the sofa, tangled in the blanket that Damian had certainly not pulled over himself. He fought his way free, slapping away the hands that moved to offer assistance.

Todd. Harper. The alien princess … it didn't matter because Damian didn't need their help.

He recovered his feet and took cover in the bathroom—the only place Damian could be assured of privacy in their blasted home.

Damian didn't belong here. He wanted to go home to Father and Pennyworth. He'd rather be in Chicago with Grayson or exiled to the farthest reaches of the globe like Cassandra and Brown … but not Titans Tower with Drake. Damian wasn't that desperate yet.

Damian stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror—stared at the green eyes that were the cause of his banishment. No longer the pale blue image of his father's; Damian was more an al Ghul than ever and it was all Todd's fault.

It was fortunate that he had already taken refuge in the bathroom. Damian only had to take a step further in order to empty his stomach within the confines of the toilet. It didn't take long; he hadn't eaten much that day.

"You okay, kid?"

Damian swiveled, swiping at his face with the back of his hand. "Is nothing sacred with you people?" he demanded angrily.

"Not really," Todd shrugged, moving as if to crouch beside Damian. A low growl kept him from going through with that poor decision, and Todd hovered in the doorway. "We could get Grayson on the communicator," Todd offered finally.

That was a sincere offer. Damian had spoken with Grayson twice since the escape from Leviathan, facilitated by first Todd and the second time by Starfire. He knew enough to realize the significance of the offer; he just refused to be the sort of pathetic child that begged for its guardian's attention.

"You should have woken me," Damian accused instead, flushing away the evidence of his weakness and shakily finding his feet again.

"Damian, you haven't slept in two days," Todd sighed, running a hand through his two-toned hair in frustration. "That crap isn't healthy."

"I don't want to sleep!" Damian shouted. The outward swing of his fisted hand caught the mirror at just the right angle to shatter it. Todd cursed and lunged forward to yank Damian out of the glass debris. Damian promptly writhed in the older man's grip until he could dig his teeth into the arm that attempted to restrain him.

He hated how easy it was for his older brothers to heft his weight and cart him from place to place against his will. He hated being small, and he hated how every vigilante with a few years/inches on him felt the need to manhandle Damian into obedience.

"I've got it, Harper," Todd snapped over his shoulder. "Just go help Kory or something."

Damian twisted, but his view was blocked by his older brother's solid frame.

"I know that he drew blood—the brat does that. I'll deal with it."

Todd got a better grip on Damian, pinning the boy to his side before using a towel to sweep off the counter. Then he seized Damian under the arms and lifted him up onto the counter. "Stay put," he commanded in an eerie echo of Dick's last command in the Cave. "Give me your hand."

Damian complied only because Todd had gotten rid of Harper. He'd sliced up his hand, but no glass appeared to have been embedded in the wounds. Todd checked before cleaning the injury and wrapping it.

"I didn't mean to do it," Damian heard himself say and flushed. "I didn't mean to break the mirror," he corrected with a nod to Todd's bloody forearm. "I meant to do that."

"No kidding," Todd muttered, boxing Damian in with his body as he mopped at the blood. "Nice set of fangs you've got there." After another moment's reflection, Todd dismissed the injury in favor of enforcing eye contact.

Todd's eyes were the same haunted shade of green, and it must fade. Surely, Todd's eyes had not been so dark a few weeks ago—a sort of blue-green that was not quite teal—but not the green of the Lazarus Pit. Surely it was the effect of partial immersion in the Pit that coloured them so, and Damian's eyes would return to their normal pallor soon.

"I hate you," Damian whispered.

Todd gave a bark of laughter, screwing his eyes shut for a moment. "If it makes you feel better, go right ahead," he returned in amusement. Then he sobered, gripping Damian's chin uncomfortably. "Hate me. Hate Talia. Just don't let it burn you up, baby boy. Don't let it burn you up inside." The older man dropped a clumsy kiss on Damian's forehead. "I'm going to get you home again—I promise."

Damian swallowed painfully.

"In the meantime, let's see what we can do about those nightmares," Todd decided abruptly, swinging Damian over the glass shards and settling him on his feet in the hallway. "Sometimes, if you wear yourself out beforehand, the dreams don't come. We'll give sparring a try, and Harper's got some kind of magic tea that he swears could knock out anything."

Damian couldn't figure out if it was the tea or the hours spent sparring or even the hot shower, but he could barely keep his cursed eyes open long enough to navigate the stairs. Damian dimly recalled Todd scooping him up before he made it to the top, so he wasn't entirely surprised to find himself on the couch again when he next opened his eyes.

It had been the first peaceful night since the Joker had reappeared, and as promised—completely nightmare-free.

So Damian rolled over and went back to sleep. Todd made an acceptable pillow.

* * *

_"If only they'd look closer . . ."_

_- Aladdin; "One Jump Ahead Reprise"_


	7. Dragged You Out of Hell

Written for **rolorules** – _"What about Jason asking Tim to assist him in persuading Ra's and/or Talia to revive Damian in a Lazarus Pit without Bruce's knowledge?"_

* * *

The Reds cultivated ties to the al Ghul family long ago. They alone took the time to ingratiate themselves with the powerful members of an immortal family. Only the two of them stood a chance at righting this wrong.

_Technically_, only one of them.

With Damian's death at Talia's command, Jason's tie is mostly useless. No amount of persuasion could change her mind now. Ra's on the other hand could be reasoned with. He liked to play a longer game, and Jason was of the opinion that Tim could sell the plan. Tim was not so certain.

"I think that you're truly underestimating the amount of Ra's al Ghul's property that I have blown up over the years."

"I think that you're forgetting that Ra's likes to be top dog in the al Ghul hierarchy, baby bird. Talia's just playing dress-up, and I'm not sure why Daddy Dearest hasn't smacked her down yet."

"Ra's loves her."

"So did Bruce. Look where that got 'em," Jason shrugged, determined to be oblivious to all of Tim's logic. It was a stalemate that they had been arguing for days as their family drowned ever deeper in grief.

Finally, Jason delivered the ultimatum: "Look, Little Red, I like your plan. It's smart, it's quick, it's freakin' brutal. But I'm not dumping anyone in the Lazarus pit without the advice and permission of an expert."

Jason was sitting hunched over, fingers toying with the creamy white lock of hair at his temple as he stared out at the lonely trio of figures haunting the cemetery in the rain. Bruce, Dick, and Titus were all daily visitors no matter what the weather. Jason tugged at his hair in a way that had to be painful; Tim wondered why the older man had stopped dying it.

They sit in silence, Jason with his vigil and Tim with his plans, for a long moment before Jason speaks again.

"What Talia did to me, Tim … well, that's not the way it's supposed to work. If we're going to do this, we're going to do better than that—better than _her_. So that means you're going to march in there, grovel, charm, and secure Ra's goodwill before we go a step further. Understood?"

Tim swallowed. "Understood."

* * *

_"I dragged you out of hell. I can throw you back in."_

_- Castiel; Eric Kripke's __Supernatural_


	8. Like Going to Sleep After a Very Long Da

Written for **tharrow** – _"What if Zatanna helped Damian cover up his death and the sword in the stomach was actually a magical illusion?"_

* * *

"Are you sure about this, kiddo?"

"I am not a child."

Zatanna raised an eyebrow with a mild frown. "If you go through with this, there will be those who remember you as nothing else."

Robin scowled, wrapping his bloody hand. "I am paying you for magical assistance, Zatanna, not amateur philosophy." He tugged his gauntlet over the injury, and pulled his hood over his head: "Father and Nightwing are terrible actors—if this plan is to succeed, they must believe in the illusion as well."

_Believe and be devastated by_, Zatanna corrected mentally, but did not argue with the little son of the Bat. She had been hated by Bruce before, and would do it again to keep his child safe. 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned' and the Batman attracted some number of furious women both in and out of costume. Talia was a reoccurring problem, but she was neither the first nor the last.

"How can you be so certain that this man will be the one your mother sends?" Zatanna asked instead as she traced a more familiar spell into the crimson smeared on her table. She had never done two spells locked into each other like this, and never with another's blood. Now she wondered why Robin insisted that his blood would suffice for both spells. Even family could not guarantee the connection of blood in magic.

She could not ask, but the question she gave voice was not dissimilar.

"I know Mother," the boy said simply.

Zatanna pressed the charm into the blood, flipped it and gave the other side the same coating.

She stared at the masked face of the little boy—son of a man that she might have loved—and Zatanna raised her free hand to frame his cheek, fingers brushing along the edge of the green domino. They seldom crossed paths, and Damian preferred to be masked for such occasions. Zatanna found herself wondering how many of his allies had ever seen the boy beneath the mask. "Damian, you don't have to do this. Our allies could get you out now."

"Mother would follow. Gotham could be lost."

Talia and Bruce had no idea what they had in this child. Zatanna took his chin in her hand and pulled the boy forward to place a kiss upon the boy's brow. "Efas yats," she whispered into his hairline, one last spell to ease his path.

Then she leaned back, paying no heed to the widened lenses of his little mask and becoming professional once more. With a firm tap of her fingers, the pendant absorbed the blood, returning to its dull metallic sheen. She wrapped it in a silk handkerchief, before tucking it into Robin's gloved fingers.

"Do not touch this until the time comes," she warned. "In fact, he must touch it first." Robin flexed his thin fingers in their protective covering and nodded seriously. "You must get it into his hand, and it will become like the last weapon he held. It will mimic that weapon exactly, Robin. The pain will be real," she reminded him severely. Zatanna did not approve of this plan, but she understood what was at stake and softened. "However, any wounds it deals shall also heal. You will need something else to simulate the effects of death."

"I have access to Pennyworth's medical kit," he nodded brusquely. "It should suffice."

"When the time comes," Zatanna promised, "you will wake with friends."

The Boy Wonder gave a very small smile in return. "I know."

* * *

_"To the well-organized mind, death is like going to sleep after a very long day."_

_- Albus Dumbledore; JK Rowling's __Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone_


	9. Don't Ask Why Not Ask

Written for **tarrinatopaz** – _Wing!fic to Katy Sagal's "Bird on a Wire."_

* * *

Gotham seldom enjoyed pleasant weather, but the insistent downpour of the last two weeks seemed to be the city's response to the loss of her Robin. On the day they had buried Damian, it had begun to softly rain, gradually increasing with each night, and had yet to stop.

Dick found the rain peaceful, meditative even … a way to zone out when the day was over and the others had retreated to their own hiding spots for the night. For his own decompression time, Dick had a favored window seat in particular where he could see the cemetery from the second floor music room and just be for a little while.

Most nights, he fell asleep there. Heck, some afternoons Dick fell asleep there while Bruce and Tim went to WE and Alfred performed duties in the Cave. It was on one of those days that Dick woke up with a protesting neck and the certainty that he had missed dinner.

If Alfred hadn't bothered waking him for food, then the others hadn't come home for it either.

Outside, the rain continued to fall, a comforting constant, and Dick rested his forehead against the cool surface, splaying his fingers over the window pane as if he could touch the rain spilling over the outside of the glass.

His gaze had been drawn to the cemetery like it so often had before, and at first—it was nothing. Just another pretty statue in a small cemetery, the figure of a child-sized angel surrounded by giant wings as it perched on the marker.

Except no such statue had ever been placed in the cemetery … and that the stone in question had absolutely no adornment by Dick's own request.

Dick pressed against the glass, but the rain was too thick. He thought he saw movement though, and that sent him flying from his perch, grappling through the hall past a soaked and befuddled Tim. His younger brother's room had a balcony, and Dick flung himself over the edge in a move that made Tim shout. Dick barely heard it, already swinging down from branch to branch in the nearby tree. He slipped from the water and worn wood on the second to last handhold, falling the last seven feet, but Dick didn't notice the twinge in his ankle either.

The sprint across the lawn in the rain was the longest run in Dick's life, and he gasped out something—a name, a plea, something that never quite made it to his own ears, but caused the figure in the rain to turn towards him.

Dick lunged, tackling the boy from the stone and taking them towards the ground. The small warrior twisted at the last minute, causing Dick to take the brunt of his own fall and landing atop the acrobat. "Be careful, idiot," is snapped, but Dick didn't need the voice to confirm an identity. Not even the rain could hide the familiar face at this distance, and Dick sprang upright to hug the boy to his chest.

His hands encounter a wall of feathers—not stone, not statuary or symbolic hallucination—but actual feathers, gray and sodden from the rain. Damian pulled back, hugging his bare chest with a quiet "Tt" as he looked away.

"Damian," came the hushed whisper, "Are you real?"

Damian looked as though he wasn't entirely certain of the answer himself. There was a body six feet beneath them, and wings sprouting from small shoulders … but Damian's weight had been real, tangible and his skin, while wet and raised with the cold of the rain, still had some warmth to it. Damian opened his mouth as if to answer, but Dick didn't wait for it. He dove forward and yanked his brother into his arms a second time—wings and all.

Childish hands made their way around Dick's neck and clung back just as tightly. "Sort of … does it matter, Grayson?"

"Not at all," Dick promised. "Not at all."

* * *

_I saw a young man leaning on his wooden crutch. He called out to me: "Don't ask for so much!"_

_And a young woman leaning in her darkened door; she cried out to me: "Why not ask for more?"_

_- Katey Sagal; "Bird on a Wire"_


	10. We Put the Bullets Back In

Written for **Anonymous** – _"I don't know if you've watched Batman Beyond but there is an episode with Ra's and a clone Talia I think? And Ra's is trying to resurrect himself or something, so both Bruce and Talia are in close contact with a Lazarus pitt? What if if Talia and Bruce's blood had gotten in the Lazarus Pitt and resurrected Damian?"_

**A/N:** _Aside from __**Return of the Joker**__, I have seen just enough of __**Batman Beyond**__ to be dangerous—I'm not familiar with that episode. I tried to tackle the prompt from the accidental resurrection angle anyway although the dodgy comic book science remains—as always—suspect._

* * *

Bruce is tired of the al Ghul family. He is tired of the Lazarus Pit, and he is tired of the way that missions like this rub salt in a wound that will never heal.

Assassinated by a favored pupil, Ra's is once again trying to raise himself without a vessel. Well, without a recognizable vessel. The tiny carved box that Talia is struggling to recover is far too small for even an infant heir if Ra's was capable of keeping such a thing secret from Bruce's surveillance.

Working with Talia is an exercise in control—something that Nightwing lacks as he sends another ninja flying the way of the slight woman. Talia ducks easily and returned the favor with the underling she had been fighting. Turning back, both Dick and Talia land perfectly synchronized punches on their new opponents.

Bruce cannot chaperone. His struggle is with the devoted follower much higher up the ladder, wielding the decaying corpse of the Demon Head like he's making some kind of sacrifice to a volcano—not a bad analogy for the Pit that swallowed up anything that ventured too close and turned it to twisted, unrecognizable forms.

The battle is thankfully short, a bloody and broken nose aside. The misguided-mortal soon goes down under two hundred pounds of angry Bat, and Ra's bony frame is kept from slipping over the edge by Bruce's desperate lunge. He's trying to stem the blood spill when Dick and Talia joined him on the ledge with the assorted ninja incapacitated or dead below. Neither looks to be too badly harmed, although Talia is complaining vocally about the three long scratches that some minion had left on her cheek as she cradles the broken box in her arms.

Nightwing's shoulders tensed—tighter and tighter with each verbal lash—until Bruce could see the outcome before it happens. Talia turns to appeal to her "Beloved," and Dick shoves her over the edge into the pit in a childish fit of hurt and frustration.

For a split second, as Talia resurfaces looking as flawless as before and spitting mad to boot, Bruce thought he would only have to deal with Dick's poor choices while getting them out of an irritated Talia's domain. Then the water continues to churn and foam even as Talia pulled herself out the other side.

Ra's body is here. Talia has already emerged.

What was in that box?

The Pit excels at making something from next-to-nothing—what has Talia kept all these years and struggled so hard to keep from the Pit that was her family's source of life?

A child's hand reaches from the water, striking down hard in an irritated splash. Beside Bruce, Dick makes a choked noise and nearly dives into the pit for a rescue, but the Batman holds him back; the Nightwing suit is not airtight and leaves Dick's face mostly exposed. So it's with an exasperated expression that Talia reaches out and pulls a small child—no more than four years old at best from the Pit.

"Mama," it complains even as it reaches up for the woman.

Talia does not lift it, simply stalks around the perimeter of the Lazarus Pit and leaves the boy to scurry after in confusion. The woman reaches the pair of shocked vigilante before the child does, and thrusts the shattered remains of what was once an elaborately carved box at Bruce's chest.

"A simple mother's memento," she issues shortly, as the boy falls into step behind her like a small and well-practiced soldier. "Teeth, of course, contain no DNA on their own, but thanks to your circus fool and your own misfortune, an alternative source of DNA was readily available.

It takes Bruce a moment to translate Talia's explanation, helped along by the niggling memory of a secondhand story at the funeral about Damian losing two of his baby teeth absurdly early in a training exercise. It had been Jason's only contribution that night which is why the story stayed with Bruce even now, years later. With context, Talia's meaning becomes clear.

_She had kept the teeth._

And now … now the Lazarus Pit had taken the blood and bone offered. The Lazarus Pit had given them back Damian—a child as he was on the day those tiny teeth had been knocked out by a mishandled bo staff.

Damian opens his mouth to ask a question, revealing the baby whites in all their glory for a scarce second before keeping his own childish counsel and settling for the hem of his mother's tunic.

Talia pushes him away firmly, stroking one hand over the fine dark hair at the last moment as she guides him to Bruce's side.

"Damian," she commands, "Ibn al Xu'ffasch." She jerks her chin in the direction of Batman. "You have wished for your father, and now you shall continue your training in his care. This is the man who sired you, and this …" Talia turns and sneers in Dick's direction, causing Damian to take a step back from Nightwing into the shadow of the Batman. "This is his foundling—one of many that you shall one day overcome. Do you understand me, Damian?"

"Yes, Mother."

"Very well. Should we meet again," Talia waves dismissively. "Do clean up your mess, Beloved. I have work to be done." She's leaving, leaving Bruce with this moral quandary, an imitation that is nevertheless real, and no clear plan of where to go from here. History is repeating, because Talia is leaving her son in Bruce's hands to build or ruin all over again, and Damian's small fingers are tentatively finding a hold in the Batman's cape with a trust that Bruce had to fight for the last time around.

"Talia!"

She stills in the doorway, her elegant hands clenching the frame painfully, but Talia does not turn around. "This child has not betrayed me," she announces with false-calm and a casual toss of her head, _"Yet."_

* * *

_"We put the bullets back in."_

_- Selene; __Underworld_


	11. Sequel - Only a Little Further Away

Sequel to **We Put the Bullets Back In**.

* * *

Bruce is determined not to waste the gift that Talia has allowed.

This child is his son.

But this child is not Damian.

He is, but he isn't. Bruce will never let blood stain the innocent hands the clutch at his cape, and the boy will never grow up to be the Damian that they had lost. He might never take up art or the violin. The training stops immediately so he will never be proficient at swordplay, and Bruce will die before another of his son's ever becomes a soldier.

Becomes a _hero_.

So he offers the boy a new name … any name … anything that hasn't been carved into stone out back.

It isn't fair, of course, but Bruce needs this. Dick needs this—his oldest never comes around now, can barely stand to look at the small figure in photographs or on vid screens.

A new name for a new life—a charmed life with the guardians of Gotham for protectors.

The rest of the clan gets involved in the choosing thereof. Tim has lists, and Steph makes some truly awful puns while Jason lobbies for a few favorites. Babs is carefully considerate of what Damian might have wanted, combing the untouched bookshelves in the shrine-like bedroom. Alfred rejects Bruce's half-hearted suggestion of Thomas, and Cass just wrinkles her forehead over the whole thing.

The toddler chooses his own name in the end.

He pulls the name "Christopher Robin" from a movie that Steph brings over, and because the child is Damian at heart, he pronounces it exactly like that—as if it's all one word. It's an enormous name for one so small. The last two syllables unsettle Bruce who uses "Christopher" alone. Alfred, Babs, and Jason follow his lead, but Tim calls the child exactly what the boy chose and Steph does the same because she thinks it's adorable.

Bruce has _never_ been able to control his middle children.

Christopher is Damian and he isn't. He has the same tyrannical assumptions, but with a few months of dedicated effort, the toddler will fling himself into Steph's arms for hugs. Christopher will shamelessly use Jason as a personal jungle gym, and the boy will help Alfred with the too-serious expression on his face as if the placement of the silverware is of grave importance. Christopher will even take his books to Tim with the imperial command: "Read, Timothy. Read to me now."

Timothy. Jason. Stephanie. Cassandra. Barbara. Alfred.

Daddy.

The first time, Christopher barely whispers it. Bruce is reading in the study while Christopher plays nearby, and the boy cautiously tests it out, looking down at his toys when Bruce turns toward him in surprise. It gets bolder with every use until Christopher will demand "Daddy" from across the mansion.

Bruce will look at the child clinging to his cape, cuddled in Tim's lap for story-time, wearing an over-sized apron at Alfred's side, and even wrapped in a gleeful hug from Stephanie. He will look at that child and think how this should have been Damian's life the first time, but Bruce will not dishonor his dead son's memory by pretending that he's fixing anything. The child in their arms does not make the child in the grave _disappear_.

Christopher is part of Damian, and they cherish him for it.

But Christopher is not Damian, not the ten year old who battled evil and won on a nightly basis. He is not the boy who struggled to show or accept affection, and he will never be the boy who could see eye-to-eye with the Red Hood, but followed Dick Grayson regardless.

They're coming to accept that, to stop looking for Damian's attitude in Christopher's words or his fighting grace in childish movement.

If Bruce could have both boys, he'd take that option in a heartbeat … but after half a year, he could never trade one for the other.

So this is contentment … if only they could have Dick home again.

He sends a gift on the random day that Bruce has assigned to be Christopher's birthday—not the day he was pulled from the pit, and not Damian's birth or death day. Bruce chooses a date without meaning, and on that day a package of the original _Pooh_ books arrives from his eldest to commemorate the occasion.

_For Christopher Robin Wayne, with regards—Tigger._

Jason laughs like Dick has never made a funnier pun, and immediately starts to assign character identities to the other heroes. Bruce is declared Eeyore, and Tim is assigned the worried Rabbit. Cass is given the title of Kanga while Stephanie eagerly accepts the title of Roo. Babs and Alfred agree magnanimously to share the title of Owl and whenever Colin stops in, he becomes Piglet. Jason takes the hero of the piece upon himself with some commentary on teddy bears with "a head full of fluff."

All of a sudden, there are skits ranging across the manor as they act out scenes from Christopher's new books with some allowances made for the absent Tigger. Somehow the ominous title sounds less threatening when bellowed across the mansion by Jason as the giggling toddler hides under Bruce's desk chair.

But Bruce makes a promise to himself—one that he _knows_ Dick will keep when the younger man once again inherits the cowl—that Christopher will _never_ wear the Robin red. The boy is not Damian, but Bruce and Dick can both see the boy they loved in his features.

It is never easy, but they continue forward.

It's another four months before Bruce finds his eldest in the toddler's room, soothing a pit dream with hugs and kisses. Then when Christopher starts to settle, Dick begins telling stories of Damian—things that Bruce had never known and Christopher would never experience.

In stories, Robin will forever fly.

* * *

_"Yesterday, I was with your father. He was only a little further away from me than you are now. I went to sleep, and when I awoke the next day, I learned that, overnight, twelve years had passed. And instead of the only man I ever loved, there stood a girl with his eyes. My heart is not cold. It's broken."_

_- Selene; __Underworld: Awakening_


	12. And a Dishonest Man You Can Always Trust

Written for **angryriceball** – _"Can we see Dick tear through the Code and Talia's flesh for a way to get his youngest brother back? Probably through the default Lazarus Pit?"_

* * *

Dick has done terrible things. Things that are forgotten or glossed over in the charm of being Dick Grayson, Nightwing, Batman 2.0, and of course the role that no one can ever forget—the very first Robin. Dick has taken steps that everyone around him excuses.

They say terrible things about how he _tried_, how he was _grieving and traumatized_, how he was _undercover_, how it _wasn't his fault_, and the worst of all of them: that he did these terrible things _for his loved ones_.

Dick has never done it for his loved ones. Dick does it for himself, because Dick cannot live without people to love, protect, and care for. Dick does it, because he will forever be the child left out of the last act and watching his parents fall to their deaths. Dick does it, because he will find out about his foster siblings deaths after the fact from someone other than Bruce every time. Dick does it, because he doesn't want to be alone.

So at first, he simply stopped. He stepped aside, upholding the code and shattering it in a single step.

No, even before that—he learned to kill. He carried a gun in the name of duty.

There was a time long ago where he served under one of the world's most deadly hit men, and since then, he has watched his beloved costume claim the lives of three more children.

Out of self-preservation and a heart being torn in pieces, Dick has imprisoned one brother, driven away a second, and clung to the third. Damian was supposed to be the one that never left him—Batman and Robin forever in the kind of silly, endless dream that Dick had once fostered about being Bruce's Robin forever.

Before life and Gotham aged him, before Bruce had kicked him out, and long before Bludhaven taught him to pick his battles and attachments. Far too often, Dick has been too late, and his are the hands that pry bodies from their loved one's arms.

No one will take Damian from him, and at first … no one tries. Understanding, compassion, concern, alarm, fear cycle in those that cautiously circle where Dick sits in the cave with Damian in his arms and tears rolling down his cheeks, but they do not take Damian from his guardian's arms even long after the body has cooled.

Then Talia tries to demand the body, and a switch is thrown.

_He does these things for his loved ones_, they say. Well, Damian is the one Dick loves most after Bruce in the way of Batmen and Robins. His only Robin, his brother and son, a child taken too soon and a shell in Dick's arms—the noose around his neck. A loss that Dick doesn't want to survive carrying … and how very fortunate that the woman with control over the Lazarus Pit has practically invited him into her home

Nightwing looks up at Talia, and Dick smiles.

To the shock and horror of all who hear, the first Robin agrees. Dick promises to bring Damian straight to Talia.

He never promised not to bring his Robin's sword.

* * *

_"Me? I'm dishonest, and a dishonest man, you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you have to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly . . . stupid."_

_- Jack Sparrow; __Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl_


	13. Are We Done for Now or is This for Good?

Written for **starfata** – _"Steph may have been erased from the timeline—but really, like that's supposed to stop her. Ghosts in the machine, Boyfriend Wonder?"_

* * *

Tim doesn't recognize her at first.

She's just another pretty blonde wrangling a cranky child in the supermarket. She could be an older sister or a babysitter, but … her smile is too broad. The gentle hand on her companion's head is too fond, and the child's complaints are punctuated by the relieved half-smiles that come with anxiously checking over his shoulder every few seconds.

Curiousity piqued, Tim tries to follow them.

Even with the Bat-training, Tim doesn't make it the length of the aisle before the boy stiffens. Then the stranger turns around and waves at him sunnily. "See something you like, Boyfriend Wonder?" she calls, making Tim back into a display while the child at her side shoots him an angry, distrustful glare that Tim _does_ recognize.

"Damian!" Tim rocks forward, because it's Damian and Damian is dead. Tim saw it happen, and now the little boy is standing in the cookie aisle with a strange blonde.

The blonde somehow gets between them before Tim can seize his brother or demand an explanation. "Slow down there," she warns as Tim tries to press forwards and Damian steps backwards. "You stay. Time to go, sweetie," the blonde chirps at Damian, pulling a necklace over her head.

Tim can just make out a tri-coloured ring painted on the side of a square charm before Damian's hand reluctantly closes over the offering. Tim's seen that symbol before, but he just can't place it …

"Go on," the blonde encourages with a smile. "I'll catch up with you and Cass in a bit."

Damian … Cass?

"Stephanie?!"

The blonde beams at him. "Finally bought a clue there, Boy Wonder? Go on, follow the rabbit hole a second, Little D and I need to have a talk." She grabs Damian's hand and tugs him down the aisle. There, Steph crouches to the boy's level for a brief whispered conversation. Then Damian drops the necklace over his head and disappears.

Tim makes a strangled sound as Steph jogs back towards him. She has to snap a few times to get his attention. "C'mon, Tim, focus here. Who am I?"

"Steph," Tim answers automatically. "Stephanie Brown. Spoiler. R-Robin?"

"And Batgirl," Steph smiles. "At least, I was. Kinda just going with Steph for now, k?"

"Damian," Tim grasps desperately. "Damian's not dead."

A dark look settles even as Steph continues gently: "No, Tim. Damian is dead—kind of. It's complicated, and there's no good way to explain it. For now, in this world, Damian's dead. Maybe when this mess gets straightened out again, we'll get Damian back. Some worlds won't, but I'm holding out hope—just don't worry about Damian, ok? Cass and I have him; we'll take care of him now. I promise."

"I don't understand. You—I dated you, but you don't exist!"

"C'mon Tim, I thought you were a philosophy buff—don't tell me that you haven't heard of the Ghosts in the Machine. Look at it this way—Pandora's the mind. Somehow she knows what's coming and has a plan to defeat it through some of the crappiest overdone storytelling I've ever seen. The rest of you are the body just doing what comes naturally—even if that's screwed to hell by at least three different versions of yourselves always struggling for control. Cass and I—well, think of us as chaperones. We try to make it easier on you guys in little ways, and speed up Pandora's plan at the same time so that everything can go back to normal. We're the ghosts in the machine, Tim."

"And Damian?"

"We've come to a little understanding with Pandora—and by understanding, I mean Cass imperiled the all-precious box and I made a few undeniable points. So, when Damian died, she brought him to us. He's not in the most technical sense here, but everything that matters is."

Tim flounders for a second. "Is he okay?"

Steph shook her head. "Not even in the loosest definition of the word. I know in the grand scheme of things Talia's just a little fish in a big pond, but she shook Robin up good. I would happily hug that poor kid all day, every day … but that day? The day when he's finally been beaten down so far as to actually hug me back? Talia's gonna pay for that."

"Can we—it's just, Bruce … Dick and Alfred … everyone?"

"No can do, Tim. This has to stay between you and me. Or well, just me, because when I walk away, you're not going to remember this too well."

Tim thinks he's losing pieces of it already. The symbol on the necklace is gone, and Stephanie's shopping cart is beginning to look blurry. "You have to go?"

"Yeah," Steph smiles gently. "Cass and Dami are waiting for me. We've got a lot to do."

"You've been … prodding things? Fixing the world?" he asked desperately, because there's so much wrong right now that Tim feels like he's drowning in it. "Tell me some of it—the little things?"

"I dropped Alfred-kitty off at the shelter where butler-Alfred found him," Steph confides cheerfully, gently tugging Tim back down the aisle behind her. "And Cass gave Ellie a good shove in Bruce's direction a few months ago. She broke a pearl necklace down in the sewers because Damian was trying so hard, and I left a football where Arsenal would find it. Oh, and I made those waffles you shared with Jay back at the beginning; bet you can't remember how you found them …"

* * *

At the register, Tim blinks bemusedly at his basket and wonders whatever possessed him to take four packages of double-stuffed Oreos as he courteously allows a blonde woman to go ahead of him. She waves good-bye, and Tim isn't sure … _did he know her from somewhere?_

* * *

_"Are we done for now, or is this for good?_

_Will there be something in time for us-there should._

_Only girl for me is you . . . there can be no other one_

_If I didn't have faith, I would come undone._

_So much promise in your eyes, seems that I can only see._

_It always makes me wonder if you save it all for me."_

_- Ghost of the Robot; "Good Night, Sweet Girl"_


	14. Timmy's Down a Bloody Well

Written for **robintonightwing** – _"I had another idea, which is a bit more fluffy: Titus is not the kind of Great Dane who sits around and waits when his boy is going off into danger."_

* * *

His boy has gone.

This will not do.

It is easy for Titus to sneak past the Provider-of-Food. He is a large dog, and for some reason, the humans assume that Titus is noisy and clumsy because of it. This is not always true, but Titus will allow them to think that. He has work to do—a boy to find.

Tracking his boy is harder when the boy refuses to keep both feet on the ground like a respectable mammal. Titus aims for the sounds and smells of battle instead; surely his boy will be there fighting the good fight like all heroes do.

It takes a dog a long time to run from Wayne Manor to the heart of Gotham. By the time Titus arrives, things are not good. His boy is hurt and in trouble, but the Alpha-Dog is nowhere to be seen. The Sneaky-Giver-of-Toys is pinned down by broken things and The-Man-Who-Walks-Upside-Down lies unmoving in the wreckage of a broken case and a fallen costume.

The cases are not to be broken. The cases require the greatest of care. Titus' boy has taught him that.

The big stranger is approaching the boy with a weapon in his hand.

Titus is a large dog. The stranger is larger.

Titus charges anyway and bites down on the hand that would raise a weapon to his boy. His considerable bulk manages to knock the man to its knees, and Titus growls around the bone and flesh locked in his mouth. He is disconcerted when the man manages to lift him from the floor, but Titus' mission is paramount and he hangs on.

The stranger throws him against the wall. Once, twice, a third time and the jarring of his head breaks Titus' bite. He slides down the wall, and can't quite pull himself to his feet. Titus begins to crawl, because he needs to be at his boy's side. Has it been enough?

Yes.

His boy is back on his feet. The-Man-Who-Walks-Upside-Down is moving again, and the Sneaky-Giver-of-Toys is dragging himself forward much like Titus, himself, does. Even better, the Alpha-Dog has arrived.

The Alpha-Dog secures a victory, because Titus has bought them all time. Titus has done good work today.

_Good Boy, Titus_, he reminds himself.

"Yes, Good Boy," his little master—his boy—reassures him with a gentle pat on the head. Titus whines as the Alpha-Dog picks him up carefully, and The-Man-Who-Walks-Upside-Down is carrying his boy so that the petting can continue. "Good boy."

_Good Boy, Titus._

* * *

_"Timmy's down a bloody well, and if you make me miss it . . . !"_

_- Spike; Joss Whedon's __Buffy the Vampire Slayer_


	15. You're My Crew

Written for **bunny-hime** – _"Jason gets to Damian in time because he won't let another Robin die, especially the one that was his Redbird."_

* * *

Jason always has a back-up plan. There are things that Batman can't do, and the Red Hood can. Somewhere halfway across the world, Arsenal is deep in Talia's territory wearing one of Batman, Inc.'s truly impressive masks while Starfire awaits his signal. Talia has poured everything there is of Leviathan into this attack, and Jason's team will press that advantage while the woman is vulnerable.

His friends are doing this for him so that Jason can be in Gotham—so that Jason can protect his family.

He's not exactly on any of the regular com-lines, but he's picking up enough to know that B is busy and Talia's monologue is running a bit long. Kids must be giving the Fatherless a bit more trouble than she expected, but the damned thing heals. Robin and Little Red don't exactly have a chance facing off with an immortal, and Nightwing has to be out of the loop not to be responding to Red's frantic hails.

Jason clears the steps to realize why Red's so frantic; he's trapped and the battle is all on Robin's tiny shoulders. And don't get Jason wrong, the kid is giving it all he's got—seems to be re-thinking the no-kill rule while he's at it—but Talia's creation can't die. Robin is losing.

The Fatherless picks up a sword, and advances on the broken pile of beaten boy.

_"Call him off at once … Mother …"_

Jason sees red.

Wingman doesn't carry guns. The Red Hood does. This beauty is so badass that the Outlaws have nicknamed it Vera.

Jason puts the first two bullets in the back of the experiment's head where the steel face-mask doesn't protect even though this gun can rip through most metals. If the Fatherless can heal from anything, he reasons somewhere in the back of his mind behind all the red, let's give him something to heal from.

He doesn't reload—there's no reliable data on their opponent's healing factor and Jason doesn't have the time. He snags the guns from his belt and empties them both into the sinking figure in white. Then he pulls his back-up piece and riddles through the downed figure for good measure.

It doesn't move, but good things never last. Jason hops the body and advances on the stunned figure of Robin. The kid's a solid mess, and Jason gives up on gentle before he even hefts the kid's weight, because there's no way this is going to not hurt. Still the determined fighter, Damian wraps his arms and legs around Jason so that the Red Hood doesn't need to spare a thought or limb to keeping the kid in place.

He wraps an arm around the kid protectively anyway, and stoops to pick up the fallen sword as he takes stock of his options.

Nightwing's still unconscious a few feet away, and Red Robin's redoubling his efforts to get out of the plane's debris. But Batman flies through the broken glass, and the Fatherless is starting to stir once more.

At least no one's asking questions.

"Get him out of here!" Batman snarls, and Red Hood gives a snappy salute.

"Bedtime, Baby Bird," he carols sweetly, and swaggers off. He can see Tim break free at last and make a run for Dick. They'll be alright, and this little guy needs the best TLC that Alfred can offer. He doesn't quite make out the whispered response, and reaches up to turn off his com and Roy's bitching about signals and luck. Talia's monologue has noticeably disappeared from the patched-frequency. Now he can hear Damian's question.

"Why did you stay?"

Jason snorts. "There's a giant fucking bounty on my baby brother's head, and the little demon never stays in the Cave. You think I'm goin' anywhere without you, kiddo?" He runs a hand over Damian's head, pulling away the hood as he goes. "Us Reds have to stick together."

* * *

_"You're my crew."_

_- Jayne Cobb; Joss Whedon's __Firefly_


	16. Hot Chicks with Super Powers

Written for **Anonymous** – _"I'm not sure whether this counts as too vague a prompt, but perhaps a way of saving Damian by dimension-hopping? (With Dick doing the saving?)"_

* * *

Damian had his multiverse-hop down to a science. Infiltrate Cave, knock out Alfred and his double, suit-up and fly into battle. Within hours, he would die and awake in the next universe to repeat his actions and integrate any new information.

Precious little, that. Damian entered the Cave just in time to get Alfred's approval, and then he could only fight until he died.

He tried to prolong it of course, minimize damage to the Bat-Family, and exploit every bit of knowledge gained.

The important thing was that every time the sword plunged through Damian … another Robin had been saved. That universe's heroes would go home in the aftermath of Damian's death to find their own Robin intact.

That wasn't to say that the worlds ran smoothly every time. Some things weren't the same; little things mostly. Who was or wasn't a Bat and where things were stored in the Cave. In one world, the Fatherless had full-body armor, and in another, he wore none.

The world where Damian had been born the son of Catwoman proved difficult as Selina Kyle had taken her son into hiding, and nothing was familiar about the territory or the weaponry when Leviathan attacked anyway. Damian died swiftly in that universe.

Also, the universe without Grayson was singularly unpleasant.

Now, however, the multiverse was openly mocking Damian. Not only had he been dropped into a world where everyone's gender was reversed—Damian found himself in a female body thanks to the multiverse's whim.

His balance was compromised. His suit subtly altered. His hair was _braided_.

The sooner Damian performed his task, the sooner Damian could depart from this awkward existence—this Rule 63.

His female double was something of a challenge to defeat. Over the last few dozen worlds, Damian had gotten to know his own fighting style intimately; his other-selves had become embarrassingly easy to take down as a result. This girl was not; she seemed to have whole-heartedly embraced the acrobatic style and graceful movements of her world's Grayson. Damian could see traces of the styles his Mother favored and encouraged during his training, but they were few.

She moved like one born into their body, and Damian was hampered by his new form. Fortunately, she was just as proud as Damian. He used that against her, and learned that she thought him to be yet another clone sent by Talia. It was an unsettling notion. So Damian told her that she would see otherwise when she woke up, and used her own momentum to swing her into the giant penny.

Valuable time wasted. He flew into battle and only just made the rendezvous point for his meaningful chat with Grayson.

"This is our last chance to—ack"

In a move that didn't match any script of Damian's experience, Regina "Reggie" Grayson caught him under the arms and lifted him like a child as she scattered smoke-bombs in her wake. Then she ran.

Away from the Fatherless—er, Motherless.

Away from battle.

Away from Batman—er, Batwoman.

"Gray—Reggie!" Damian corrected himself. His doppleganger referred to Pennyworth as Anne; undoubtedly she would use her sister's given-name. "What are you doing? Mother and Father! Gotham!"

"Donna and Jaybird have it," the woman responded tersely as she cleared the field of warfare and threw them both into an empty storefront.

"What are you even talking about?" Damian insisted, trying to squirm out of her grip on his wrists. "Release me at once; we have work to do!" He broke her hold on one arm and twisted in an effort to use leverage against her.

"Stop," she begged. "Please stop, Damian. It's going to be okay."

Damian froze. Up until this point, everyone in this world from Anne Pennyworth to Talon al Ghul had called Damian by the name "Delilah."

"R-Richard?"

The woman smiled, but it was his brother's smile. "Guess that I finally caught up, Robin. It's my turn to save you."

Damian threw himself back into Grayson's arms, and his brother clutched him close. It was ridiculous, it was absurd, it was beyond awkward—they were women in this world for pity's sake—but it was safety and home and everything that mattered. Damian dug his face into Grayson's neck and Grayson tangled the fingers of his free hand in Damian's hair, easing the braid out as he stroked.

"I wanted to save them," Damian choked out, because he refused to cry. "I knew what would happen. I thought if it happened to me—well, that would be better. I wanted it to happen to me instead of them. It hurts, Grayson."

His brother continued to soothe Damian, and they sat there until Todd and Troy caught up. Neither seemed at all fazed by their new forms, and Todd immediately dropped a hand to Damian's head, dislodging Grayson's for a turn at smoothing the ridiculous curls.

"The Heretic has been resolved," Troy reported. "And we've returned this world's Nightwing to her family. Their Red Hood has already escaped and rescued Robin and Miss Pennyworth. We should return—making it this far, it was …" Troy subsided with a shake of her newly shorn hair.

Grayson hugged Damian tighter. "Do you know how far you've come? Ellie was holding the box; it reacted somehow and you disappeared into the multiverse the second you stopped breathing. Jason contacted Donna, and we've been chasing you—always too late, and do you know how many times we've watched you die?" He shook Damian. "Do you know?!"

Damian didn't; he'd lost track.

"Fifty-one times," Dick hissed. "You made it to the end of the known-multiverse, and we had no idea what would happen if you got there. If you'd keep going, or if you'd die for good, or … or …"

Damian sighed tiredly; why not? He died fifty-one times without a moment of rest—a week of never-ending battle.

"Don't be foolish, Grayson. I would have come home."

* * *

_"Thank God we're hot chicks with super powers."_

_- Faith Lehane; Joss Whedon's __Buffy the Vampire Slayer_


	17. The Family Business

Written for **Anonymous** — _"Damian confided in Helena about his worries the night before he died, she decides her brother is more important then keeping her presence secret."_

* * *

She's touched by the choice of weapon when Damian makes what should be his final stand.

His hand is steady and his aim is sure.

He is her brother in all the ways that matter—universes, timelines, and titles aside—he is hers, and the Huntress has claimed him. If there is an afterlife, they could hunt there together someday … or they could hunt together now.

In deference to their father's rules, Damian's arrow deliberately misses the heart.

Helena's does not.

* * *

_"You know, saving people, hunting things, the family business."_

_- Dean Winchester; Eric Kripke's __Supernatural_


	18. What About Our Lives?

Written for **devbneo** – _"What if Steph/Cass/everyone else who didn't make it to the rebooot grabbed him for an undercover mission that they need his help for (because clearly they are still around, just working their own job that no one knows about …)"_

* * *

Steph sighed, and turned to the man behind the console. "Look, Bruce, we need Damian and the kid probably shouldn't be here. Are you sure that you couldn't spare him for a week or two?"

_Do not tip your hand too soon._

"This was your idea, Fatgirl."

Steph promptly turned and pinned the little demon with a look. "Yes, and it isn't going according to plan. I am asking you for help, oh mighty Robin Redbird. Does that make you happy?"

"Tt—I suppose the opportunity to work with Cassandra again would make the experience worth my time." Damian frowned at the former Batgirl in an expression that did not completely conceal a few months' worth of worry. "This should teach you to take missions without adequate support and supervision, Brown."

Steph gave a smile that showed all her teeth, but didn't dare unlock them. She and Bruce waited in silence until Damian had disappeared into the Manor proper to collect his things. Then, and only then, did Bruce sigh. "The plan is well thought-out, and your mission ahead-of-schedule, Stephanie. I'm very pleased with your work." He ran a hand down his face wearily. "Thank you for doing this."

"Uh-huh. Just remember … Black Bat and Spoiler do not babysit for free."

Bruce raised an eyebrow. "Did I not arrange for a Batgirl Cycle? Or purchase you a car?"

Steph smiled sunnily this time. "And now I want a jet. Please and thank you."

Bruce would argue, but he was pretty sure that he had already lost. "And Cassandra's request?"

"Cass would like a Bat Cow of her very own," Steph reported cheerfully. "Just think, B, one little ol' jet, a second bovine in the Cave, and you too can enjoy a few weeks free of Li'l D's drama and the effort of keeping him in one piece. It's a great deal, and you know it."

_It was a pretty good deal._

"Must you dawdle so, Brown?" preceded Damian's return by only a few seconds.

Bruce took the deal before Stephanie could rescind the offer, hugging his former-Robin to keep her off-balance. "One cow and one jet—eggplant, not purple—I know. Have fun."

Steph was 99% sure that she'd been bamboozled.

* * *

_"What about our lives?!"_

_- Brandon Walsh; __The Goonies_


	19. Like Deja-vu?

Written for **eleavir** – _"Through some magical shenanigans, Dick was able to go back to the fateful day to redo what had been done. But alas! New mistakes were always made when the old ones were undone so he was never able to save Dami at the end of the day (cue Groundhog Day). Of course, in the end he did it. Black Forest cakes for you if you could diverge it from Mystery Spot of Supernatural. Black Forest with cherries on top if you could have Dick complete the 5 stages of grief by the end of the story.:)"_

* * *

**Denial.**

The movie, _Groundhog Day_, is no longer funny.

The first time that Dick relived the events of that day, he had panicked. Completely losing any semblance of normality, Dick scooped up Damian and ran the second Bruce gave their marching orders. It hadn't been the greatest of plans.

Dick may have successfully evaded the others and Leviathan, but desperate pleas to "Trust me" along with incoherent ramblings about what was going to happen only alarmed Damian. Twenty miles out of Gotham, Dick's baby brother knocked him out and returned to the battle alone.

Dick woke up and started over.

**Anger.**

When weeks of running away did nothing to alter fate, Dick began working out his problems with fists. Maybe Jason had something there, because punching Bruce in the face had been terribly therapeutic.

But flying to Talia's stronghold on the next go-around and fighting his way through the ranks of elite ninja didn't exactly make him feel better about being conscious to watch Damian's final moments on her video screen.

Then there was the day that Dick will never be proud of. The day that he used incendiary devices to utterly destroy the Fatherless beyond the capabilities of any healing factor was the day that Damian was killed in the ensuing explosion.

Days 26, 27, and 28 pass by in rapid succession.

**Bargaining.**

He tried to convince Bruce first, and after a few days of trial and error, Dick succeeded in persuading the Batman to make a more literal approach to Robin's lockdown. _Problem:_ Not even Bruce could devise a restraint that will hold Damian.

Dick turned to convincing Tim. His brother is easier to persuade, and with Red Robin's assistance, Dick was able to devise several plans that should have easily ensured Damian's survival. None of them worked; Damian always died before Dick could save him.

Dick stole the jet again for a second trip to Talia's stronghold. Once there, he begged, pleaded, bartered, and finally promised his own life in exchange for Damian's. She turned him down, and Dick watched despondently as his baby brother died for the sixty-third time.

**Depression.**

Dick gave up for a while. A week flew by, then two, in which Dick went through the lackluster motions of fighting, of saving Damian once only to lose him again, and start over.

Damian's little speech—a moment that Dick should have been able to treasure—took on a sadder tone day by day until the little boy's voice quavered as he asked: "Are you with me, Nightwing?"

Dick began throwing the battles in the very next cycle, but Leviathan's forces grew sloppier. He was a standing target, and the bullets/blows of Talia's best soldiers missed every time. Dick couldn't die, and Damian always would. It was a nightmare—and the only way to wake from nightmares would be to die in the dream. Dick abruptly abandoned Commissioner Gordon to his fate and sprinted to the top of Wayne Tower.

Flinging himself over the edge, Dick felt a split second of hope before fate kicked in.

Robin caught him before he hit the ground. The extra weight caused the one-person aircraft to crash into the building, and Dick woke up in the same nightmare.

**Acceptance.**

"Ready?"

"Almost," Dick reached out and crushed the little boy to his chest quickly. "I love you, Dami," he informed his little brother clearly. "And I am so proud of you, Robin."

"Don't be so ridiculously sentimental, Grayson," Damian insisted, blushing hotly as he squirmed free. "We have work to do."

"We do," Dick smiled through his grief, determined to give the little boy this before fate took him again. And again. And again, as the case may be. Dick would do his utmost to make Damian's last moments the best he could until the day came when Dick could figure out a way to save the child from his over-sized doppleganger. This was his job as a big brother. His responsibility. His promise.

* * *

_"Like deja-vu?"_

_- Dean Winchester; Eric Kripke's __Supernatural_

* * *

**Omake.**

"Oh, for pity's sake, will you idiots ever learn?" someone new half-howled from the background, unconcerned by the bullets. "Yes, it's all very heart-warming and brotherly, but it makes for really boring entertainment. Don't any of you knuckleheads ever get it? First Winchesters, and now the Bats … little brother equals big weakness. Every bad guy in Gotham knows it, and it was always just a matter of time. Morrison's had it written in stone since the beginning!"

Dick straightened, staring disbelievingly at the short man with a lollipop that no one else seemed to notice. Damian charged into the battle with the Fatherless, and Tim continued to struggle while Ellie made strangled noises of fear and hope. This man stared back.

"Stone, you say?" Dick managed levelly, because never let it be said that Dick couldn't roll with the punches even if said punches were figments of his own subconscious imagination. "So what? I'm friends with the Man of Steel."


	20. What a Crazy Random Happenstance

Written for **anadiangelo** – _"while his brothers take damian to a lazarus pit, Nightwing unleashes the furry of the most well connected hero of the world on talia."_

* * *

It was easy to get swallowed up by the grandness of Batman, Inc. It was easy to focus on the names and capes and heroes that served under the Bat—past and present. It was easy to forget that no Robin had ever been "just" an agent of the Batman.

It was easy to forget that Dick Grayson was the most well-connected hero in the Justice League. When Nightwing called, Superman answered. Retired heroes put on their old capes and ex-girlfriends brought down their unrighteous wrath—not upon the acrobat, but his enemies.

When it came to the original Robin, _even his enemies_ would take up the cause. Poison Ivy and Catwoman formed a truce. The Penguin poked his nose into certain matters, and Slade Wilson shouldered a new weapon.

They did these things because Dick Grayson asked them to. Talia had crossed a line, and heroes around the world rose up with just a few phone calls as the web spread ever outward. Heroes from off-world and across the multi-verse targeted Leviathan in memory of Dick Grayson's little sidekick. Talia's actions woke the original Robin from its nest and he brought down every hero upon her fledgling organization.

Every hero except Red Robin and the Red Hood.

Their teams quietly fought on without them, and only Alfred Pennyworth dared to point out the conspicuous absence. With firm respect and determination, Dick only shrugged. His brothers hadn't told him where they were going, and Nightwing hadn't asked. When Alfred pressed—hesitantly, reluctantly, _hopefully_—Dick agreed to look for them after Talia's defeat as though it hadn't been in the plan all along.

There were only a few dozen Lazarus Pits to search after all.

* * *

_"You're kidding-what a crazy random happenstance . . ."_

_- Billy; Joss Whedon's __Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog_


	21. Of Course We Intend to Resist

Written for **anonymous** – _"Inspired by how Tim gathered his small army of friends to take on his grandfather's assassins in the Red Robin arc, Damian has called in his own army of "friends" to help fight Leviathan, unbeknownst to Talia and the Batclan. Think Colin, Supergirl, Stephanie, Helena, pretty much everyone Damian's worked with in canon."_

* * *

Nightwing is down. Red Robin is down. Red Hood—no, he's Wingman today—has been captured by the enemy, and Batman has been waylaid.

Damian is completely alone.

Except Robin is never alone.

Costumed superheroes and civilians alike will always come to the littlest Bat's aid. This was true for Grayson and the Teen Titans, for Todd and the Outlaws, still true for Drake and the Titans, while even Brown could count on the other Batgirls and a few trusted friends. Today will prove to Mother and the Batclan alike that the phenomenon applies to Damian as well.

His double raises a sword, and finds his arm trapped in a fist as strong as his own. Colin … Abuse towers above the small superhero as a match in size for the Heretic before them. Ravager came from the side—more than a match for the ruthlessness of Damian's clone. And Brown … Brown could outsmart the stunted mental powers of the Heretic any day of the week.

Supergirl and Nell have wordlessly coordinated themselves in removing the victims from the Battlefield. Frightened children follow Nell to safety, while Supergirl rescues the fallen Batman, Inc. Agents. Scarlet and Squire fight under Pennyworth's careful direction—patched into Damian's frequencies as a courtesy so that he can stay out of the way.

Arrows fly from opposite shadowy corners to bring down Leviathan's mediocre artillery. The odds are two to twenty, and Damian's sister is winning. Robin is unsure whether Arsenal has come as a representative of Todd or on his own … in honor of the recent battle they had fought together for Todd's sanity. It doesn't matter; Arsenal is not completely inept, and Damian appreciates the assistance.

Commissioner Gordon has made it inside at long last. He walks among the heroes—a mortal man—with a single purpose. He approaches Damian with the exasperated, but fond eye of one who has seen everything Damian is capable of—hero and villain, child and monster—and knows the secret that will never pass an honest man's lips. Their relationship is a difficult one, but Commissioner Gordon gently lifts Damian and moves him to safety anyway.

"You grow more and more like your useless predecessors every day," his mother sneers. It lacks the appropriate weight; across the room, her 'perfect' son is struggling to counter the efforts of three individuals that were never meant to be heroes. "Calling in your team to rescue you now, Damian?"

It is amusing, because if one took Brown out of the equation, no one here has ever fought together. They are no team, but an assortment of teams and tangled loyalties that Damian has earned over his years in the House of the Bat.

"You're wrong, Mother," he murmurs, and the commissioner squeezes him as though Damian was his own child and worthy of affection as well as protection. "This is no team. We do not fight together, and if we splinter apart, not one shall fall. These people owe me nothing, and I do not owe them. They came for me anyway, because …"

Damian swallows painfully. The Heretic's grip on his neck had done some damage that made lengthy speeches painful, but Damian was an al Ghul once. Under the terse nature of the Bat is a need to make certain that his beliefs are fully understood.

"… because they are my worthy allies."

* * *

_"Don't be stupid … of course we intend to resist. Just give us a moment, alright?"_

_- Porthos; __The Three Musketeers_


	22. This is My Kingdom Come

Written for **tarrinatopaz** – _"Demons" by Imagine Dragons_

* * *

Damian inhaled sharply as the sword pierced his gut. It had come down to this then—his mother was forcing Damian to finally choose between revealing his true nature to the others or allowing his family to believe him dead.

It should have been an easy decision. It was an easy decision … until Grayson cried out.

Damian would have rather died a hero than admit to the truth of his heritage, but judging by the sheer grief in his mentor's voice, a heroic death was not an option. Damian had already put Grayson back together once this week. A second time would be superfluous and difficult to manage while Damian was assumed-dead.

So Damian got up, and ripped the sword from his double's hands. Mother could clone Damian as many times as she liked, but she could never again harness the power of Damian's nature. Damian let his eyes run black, and the Heretic cowered before him.

"Go back to your kennel," Damian ordered, throwing the sword aside and digging his small fingers into the throat of the pale imitation before him, "and stay there."

Damian al Ghul.

It meant the taming of the Demon.

His name was an all-too literal interpretation of Damian's role as Grandfather's heir—of his nature as heir or vessel or both to the great Ra's al Ghul. Damian was no beloved child, or treasure in his mother's house. Even at her most hopeful or at the bottom of her worst delusions, Talia had known Damian for what he was—a demonic power too impossible to control.

She sent him to his father, assuming that playing by the rules of the Batman would tighten Damian's leash.

For a while, it had.

Damian turned his back on Mother's failed experiment, drawing himself up to his full height and gazing even further upward into the eyes of his true brother. He stared unflinchingly into blue eyes and took heart in the fact that they did not recoil from his black gaze. Damian wet his lips, licking away the blood that had spilled there, and raised his shoulders in a calculated careless shrug. "Does it matter?"

He was swept up in Grayson's arms not a moment later, his mentor's words whispered into Damian's hood. "Not to me."

Drake would likely not feel the same, but Todd could be persuaded. Father might struggle, but Damian is secure in both his and Pennyworth's affection now. Most importantly, his mentor loved him regardless of an all too real demonic heritage.

His mother thought that this move would cage him. She thought that preying upon his weaknesses—upon the Bats and their opinion of him—she could cage her son once more. His mother thought that she could take command of his leash through blackmail, but she was wrong. Now …

… now, Damian was unleashed.

* * *

_"Don't wanna let you down, but I am hell-bound._

_Though this is all for you, don't want to hide the truth . . ._

_. . . __**This is my kingdom come.**__"_

_- Imagine Dragons; "Demons"_


	23. Had Her Chance for the World on a String

Written for **anonymous** – _"The whole thing was a fear gas induced hallucination – of Talia's! It makes her realize that Damian is better off where he is and she stops this crazy crusade to get him back."_

* * *

When Talia wrenched back control of reality, it was to a happier, safer point in time. Leviathan was still theoretical, Damian alive and growing under his circus boy's tender care if not in the direction that Talia preferred … and …

She threw off the doctors and nurses attempting to attend to her. She was in a hurry, but she would not bring Crane's noxious fumes with her. She stripped the tainted garments from her skin, rushed through the decontamination showers in the medical bay, and donned a robe mid-flight to her chambers.

There, Benjamin slept in his small bed just off Talia's own bedroom. The accelerants used for his growth have only just begun. Although just six months old, Benjamin is already the size of a toddler. Yet, her baby is still so angelic in sleep.

Much like Damian had once appeared on those rare nights when Talia visited her sleeping child during his unusual upbringing.

"Surveillance footage: Damian," Talia demanded, and the vid-screens that followed her even here into the depths of her home lit up.

Damian was currently on patrol, working with both Batman and Batgirl to bring down the Penguin. For whatever reason, the Red Hood was on Cobblepot's side this week and delighted in making things difficult for his family. Talia watched Damian spinning a staff expertly, rolling his shoulders in under Jason's guard—a move that Talia herself had taught the young boy. It was followed by a handstand-kick combination strong enough to crack the man's mask.

A worthy enemy to the House of al Ghul indeed.

Talia remembered the way his small form looked so casually thrown aside by his younger brother, and it resonated somewhere deep inside of her with the woman she had once been. The woman that had loved Bruce Wayne, but placed her family first. The woman who carried her child in secret—a child that was the perfect blend of both worlds and meant to be hers alone.

She had lost Damian's loyalty to the Batman. Talia knew that allure, the eventual backlash … could she sentence her son for a crime that Talia had once committed? Could she bring about the events that would leave Damian a broken body in his father's arms?

She scooped up Benjamin then in a moment of weakness—in need of comfort. He was not Damian, but Benjamin was all Talia had of her first son. She held him close and tried not to visualize the Batman-sized creature he could become or hear his broken words.

She knew, of course, that her younger son had little in common with his elder brother. Benjamin was too small, too sweetly devoted, and not nearly as smart. That would be Talia's fault. The supplements that augmented his growth patterns gave him the body of a three year old, but his mind evolved in a series of stop-start breakthroughs. His mental processes were not given time to catch up properly to his physical frame. They lacked the exercise of time, and basic knowledge gaps were already visible.

At three, Damian was teaching himself to read. Benjamin still communicated through three words: _Mama, no,_ and _dog_.

At three, Damian had begun his training and started every social interaction with a fight. Benjamin recognized the sound of Talia's footsteps and turned instinctively into her arms with trust and a smile.

Damian took to bladed weapons with ease, and Benjamin could effortlessly sweep a grown man from his feet. Damian poured himself into his machines and engineering, while Benjamin adored all the animals that Damian was too afraid to allow himself.

Talia had every intention of raising Benjamin as a worthy heir of the al Ghul. Damian was already proving himself to be a formidable adversary. Perhaps in time, the pair would be mortal enemies regardless of Talia's schemes … but she could delay that time.

In the morning, the supplements would cease. In the morning, Talia would reorganize Leviathan into something grander than her plans for the Batman. In the morning, Talia would abandon Damian to his chosen guardians and focus purely on Benjamin.

Her son—the one that Talia would never have to surrender to her Beloved.

* * *

_". . . had her chance for the world on a string."_

_- Mrs. Lovett; __Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street_


	24. Perhaps Today You Gave a Nod

Written for **blahrabble** – _"For the Robin Arise prompt I will like Dick pulling Dean Winchester crossroads pact."_

* * *

"Never thought you to be all that superstitious, Mr. Grayson."

Dick shrugged gracelessly. "Circus kid—you pick up a little of everything … of everywhere."

"Including the specifics of a Crossroads' Deal?" the demon asked in a matter-of-fact tone. She was a pretty redhead with the slightest accent, and if Dick didn't know better, he'd think she was an officer from the way she looked at him. Who knows—maybe the meatsuit was?

"I'm not here for the small-talk."

"No …" she smiled, laying a hand lightly against his chest. "You're looking for an albatross around your neck, and willing to sign over the rest of your life to get it. What does a handsome man like you need with a boy like that? How broken are you to put so many lives ahead of your own?" She leaned close to whisper in his ear, "To put this boy in front of them all?"

Dick didn't react, didn't draw away or reach out. He simply stared straight ahead. "I'm his brother."

He felt her disappointed sigh caress his collarbone. He'd lost the tie somewhere between the Gala, the pub, and here at the Crossroads just outside of town. "You'd be surprised how many of these Deals we get," she murmured, straightening his collar and smoothing the lapel of his ripped dinner jacket. "And they say young people have no family values these days."

Dick kept his mouth shut; he was so close.

She takes his chin in her perfectly polished nails, and her eyes flicker the same shade of disturbing red. "Standard contract, Mr. Grayson. You have ten years with your own personal demon …"

That was plenty. In ten years, Damian would be a man.

"… and then the Hounds will come to introduce you to a few of mine. Now, if you're still interested," she winked, "then a kiss to seal the deal, Mr. Grayson. I hear you have some talent in—"

Dick kissed her mostly to shut the demon up, pushing her away when she tried to deepen it. "Damian," he demanded—begged unashamedly.

"Where you left him," she laughed, swiping a hand across her smeared lipstick. "Go and dig him out if you're in a hurry."

Dick sprinted.

The grave looked as small as ever, undisturbed and silent. He had never been more relieved in the illicit burial practices of superheroes. A casket, he could get to. A vault would have required equipment that Dick didn't have or a visit from Superman that Dick couldn't explain away.

Thank goodness everyone was at the Gala.

Dick hit his knees and started digging. After a few minutes, he wrenched off the ruined suit-coat and dug faster, turning over the dirt with his bare hands. Not even two feet down, Dick could hear the screams and he yelled back. He reassured and promised and _dug_ through the dirt like a dog—like Titus who Bruce had sent away until the ground settled and the grass returned.

At one point, the dirt fell away beneath his fingertips. Damian had managed to break through the casket then, and his startled cry was muffled by the dirt, but Dick's little brother didn't know how to give up. He kept going, shifting the dirt from beneath as Dick worked from above until Dick grasped a small hand and pulled. Dick hauled the filthy, confused boy out of the grave and into his arms.

He hugged Damian close, rocking the traumatized child back and forth in his arms as Dick tried to soothe his own anxieties. One hand worked its way through Damian's hair while Dick babbled aimlessly against his little brother's temple. Damian squirmed once, then settled and fisted his hands in Dick's ruined dress shirt.

They sat there like that for hours, for minutes, for years. Then Dick found his feet and the discarded jacket to wrap around Damian. He shifted Damian's weight to his hip and started back towards the Manor. He had ten years that he couldn't afford to waste.

Dick would start by getting Damian out of Gotham.

* * *

_"Perhaps today you gave a nod . . ."_

_- Chorus; __Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street_


	25. Lacey, Gently-Wafting Curtains

Written for **eleavir** – _"Dick, being the intuitive person he is, has figured out they're fated by scripts. No one believed his theory and they all gave him sympathetic looks, thinking he's finally lost it (at this point only issues up to Nightwing #17 happened). Then Robin was KIA. Dick now decides to alter the course of history by rewriting the script that controls their fate. Only question is, How?"_

* * *

Dick Grayson has looked at his life and his choices. He's looked really hard at the last year, and he's thought: _This isn't me._

Bruce only frowns when Dick tries to haltingly explain. Alfred, Babs, and Jason suggest with varying degrees of civility that Dick needs a break, some sleep, perhaps a little company …

Damian scoffs, but he's eleven years old. Perhaps cruelest of all, Tim tells Dick that he's crazy.

_This isn't his family._

Dick flounders after that. Damian tries in his own way to comfort his former-mentor, but he doesn't understand the scripts, the roles that Nightwing feels forced into. Dick has no one else to turn to, and even that feels wrong—there should be someone else. Maybe two others—someone to understand and someone to believe in him whether they understand or not.

He clings to Damian a little tighter.

Then comes the day when Dick wakes up in the Bat Cave without Damian. That's the day when the scripts converge, and Dick loses it just a little over the body. He spends a few days in varying levels of sedation, and then hides himself away in his bedroom at the Manor. No one believes him when it comes to his theories; no one else is willing to prod that knot of wrong-ness pervading their home and family.

Dick needs to rewrite the story. He needs to wake up the other Bats so that they can take back their lives, so that they can fix this! Don't they understand that this isn't like it was with Jason? Can't they hear Damian's voice in the Manor?

They need to wake up. Dick needs to wake them up.

And for that, he needs something big, something outside his role, something that Nightwing would never ever do.

This is how Dick finds himself on the roof of Wayne Manor over the stone courtyard just as Jason and Tim are coming up the drive. He'd sent them good-bye texts, and they had dropped everything. It almost makes Dick feel bad for what he's about to do, but he has this planned out too carefully to go back now.

He's not worried about dying; Bruce will save him. Bruce always saves him.

So Dick does what he does best. He puts on a show, and rants a little about not being crazy before flinging himself in a little flip off the roof.

He hears Tim's strangled cry, and Jason's single curse on the way down. Alfred's gasp and Babs silent horror are swallowed up in the childish scream: _"Grayson, stop this!"_

Dick closes his eyes, and then something grabs him around the chest with enough strength to halt his fall completely. It's Bruce half-stretched over the windowsill like Phoebus in Disney's **Hunchback of Notre Dame**, and really, how many times has Bruce irritably pointed out that the physics involved should have pulled the other man over the edge too?

"Believe me now?" Dick gasps out, and something in the world snaps when Bruce gives a grim nod.

Bruce hauls him back over the edge, and they both collapse into a slight figure in uniform. Cassandra. _How could they have forgotten Cass?_

She had her own arms locked around Bruce as he saved Dick, adding her considerable strength to the Batman whether or not he could see her. Dick isn't sure if that's enough to circumvent physics, but well, that's the way of the Bat, isn't it? Now, Dick has gotten his arms around her in hysterical relief, and where there's Cass, there's Steph … _How could they have forgotten Stephanie?_

She's at the end of the hallway, holding back a smaller figure with all her might.

Dick chokes, and half-crawls out of the Bat-pile. The moment he reaches out, Stephanie lets go and then Dick has Damian in his arms again. Alive and safe … and Dick isn't going to let him go again for a few days. Weeks. Whatever, Damian isn't protesting.

Stephanie joins the group hug, and by then Tim and Jason have caught up. Alfred is on their heels, and Babs is already tackling her successors. Bruce has an arm around Dick and Damian while the other is wrapped around Cass. Titus appears out of nowhere as kitten-Alfred circles the mad mess of limbs cautiously. Dick just buries his face in Damian's hair and inhales … because … because …

_This is right._

* * *

_"It's curtains for you, Dr. Horrible . . . lacey, gently-wafting curtains . . ."_

_- Captain Hammer; Joss Whedon's __Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog_


	26. She Wasn't No Match for Such Craft

Written for **anonymous** – _"Damian snaps when his mother refuses to call off the clone and furiously yells at her for letting Nyssa Raatko destroy the woman his father had loved?"_

* * *

Talia does not respond to what she assumes is her son's last request. The Fatherless raises his blade high, and Damian tenses at the last possible second, shouting up into his twin's face:

"So this is it, Mother? She wins? You've finally acknowledged that the only way you could possibly own Father is in breaking him! The way that Nyssa Raatko broke you!"

Her sharp intake of breath echoes in Talia's own ears, and her creation hesitates—too acutely attuned to his Maker to risk defying her wishes.

"How dare you?" Talia demands in a hushed voice, because it is not Robin who asks her this. It is not Damian Wayne.

It is her son, Damian al Ghul … Ibn al Xu-ffash, heir of the Demon. It is her son, brash and cruel, twisted up by Talia's doing and capable of anything by her own training. It is her son, the one that cannot be cloned or replicated, the boy who could one day rule the world and choses not to. It is her son, her Damian.

"You are not my mother; you are not the woman my father loved. You are Nyssa Raatko's toy … even now, long after she's dead!" Damian is edging back and away from the Fatherless, but he keeps talking, spilling all the hateful things that Talia has tried to hide. "She didn't love you! She didn't believe in love so she tried to take away everything you loved, and you let her! You're letting her now! You are just like her!"

"Finish this," Talia orders, her command ringing in such a way that not even the unfortunate experiment could misunderstand. _"Now."_

She cracks the closest scientist across the face with her open hand, throwing her comlink to the ground even as the Fatherless moves to obey her order. It is too late; Talia has already lost her clean victory. Damian is now out of reach, and the Batman has arrived. Even if by some chance Robin falls in the ensuing melee, it will not have the same, carefully-researched effect.

_Her son had distracted her with his lies and machinations_, Talia decides furiously as she cuts the power to the machine. Then she catches sight of her reflection in the empty vid-screen, and it is not Talia al Ghul who stares back at her.

It is Nyssa Raatko.

* * *

_"She wasn't no match for such craft, you see?"_

_- Mrs. Lovett; __Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street_


	27. In an Insane World

Written for **starfata** – _"Damian might not have as many allies as his brothers- but he's got Colin. And Catwoman has a soft spot for strays."_

* * *

The first thing that one must understand about Selina Kyle is her deep affection for the felines in her care. The second thing is that under no circumstances does the Catwoman share. Not the pretty baubles that she takes a fancy to or the big, bad Bat that she's caught.

And certainly not a Robin from Gotham's nest—not even one that came from Talia al Ghul's nest first.

The littlest Robin is a prickly bundle of claws and exacting tastes. Selina's grown rather fond of him despite his tendency to interrupt perfectly nice dinners and growl unconvincingly from the shadows. As a fellow cat-lover, Damian is automatically granted a certain measure of goodwill that Selina had not freely bestowed upon the other Robins.

So when Talia brings down her Leviathan upon Gotham, upon Batman, and most of all, upon the little Robin … Catwoman is disinclined to let such things go. When Talia's creation raises a sword above his head, it is the Catwoman's whip that keeps it from descending.

Easily occupying the limited mental processes of the bully that Talia has sent to do her dirty work, Catwoman waits only until little Colin Wilkes—another stray recently landed in her care—has gotten Robin out of the way.

Leviathan is merely an aquatic creature grown too large for its habitat after all, and the Catwoman is in the mood for a little fishing.

Talia al Ghul cannot have her son back.

Damian—Robin—belongs to Selina and to Gotham now.

* * *

_"In an insane world, it was the sanest choice."_

_- Sarah Connor; __Terminator 2: Judgment Day_

* * *

"In an insane world


	28. When the Earth Holds Still

Written for **Anonymous** – _"Calls Me Home" by Shannon LeBrie_

* * *

Damian removed his helmet at the edge of Gotham. He left it with the bike at a storage locker in his Father's name, and walked the rest of the way. Hood up and a duffle slung over his shoulder, he walked through the streets of a tamer Gotham than the one he had left behind as a stupid eleven year old. Damian made his way to Crime Alley without being accosted or even distracted by a potential fight.

Pennyworth was waiting for him there.

"Master Damian," the butler greeted him formally, and Damian dropped his bag to pull the older man into a hug. He'd learned a few things while he was away—an appreciation for the butler's loyalty and love was one of them. Damian was taller than Pennyworth now, but it didn't stop the man from clutching him tightly. They stood there like that for a few long moments before the butler cleared his throat, and hustled Damian into the backseat of the car. "It's long past time to get you home, young sir."

Drake was in the seat across from him. Damian should have known that his childhood nemesis would have figured it out, because Drake only swept a cursory glance over him before settling back against the leather and downing the shot he held. His older brother is in a designer suit; Damian's wearing jeans, combat boots, and a secondhand leather jacket. Both somehow belonged.

Pennyworth took them straight to the Cave. Grayson was sitting at the computer until Damian stepped out of the car and then his former-mentor was across the Cave and scooping him up in a hug that could break a lesser man's back. Damian leaned forward to rest his head against his big brother's shoulder; it had been a long time eased only by the occasional phone call and an inadvertent meet-up in Dublin two years ago. That had been before Damian's last growth spurt, because he was taller than Grayson now too.

When Grayson released him, Damian brushed his fingertips over the insignia across his brother's chest. "You're not quite a man yet, little D," Grayson reminded him, "but don't worry—the Robin suit's still open."

"Tt," was Damian's response. Robin had been a foolish and lost child, but also the best thing that Damian had ever done. "A little tall for the Boy Wonder, don't you think? I would hate to give you a complex, Grayson."

"Someday," Dick promised, and hugged him once more before sending the Wayne heir on his way with a smile. "Welcome home."

Damian ran into Todd and Brown in the Manor. They had not been in on the secret, nor had they discerned the truth for themselves like Drake. It took them a moment to recognize him as a sixteen year old (he's grown-up somehow), but when they did, Todd let out a muffled curse. Brown opted to throw a punch, and when that approach was dodged, throw her arms around him instead. Damian patted her back awkwardly, relieved when Todd pulled her off.

"Prove it," the Red Hood demanded, his voice hoarse as he hugged the new Nightwing to his side instead.

Damian shrugged off his jacket, and snagging the hem of his t-shirt, dragged that up over his head. The knot of shiny scar tissue still ripped through most of his torso despite age and time wearing at it while Damian had been away.

Brown made a strangled noise. Todd cleared his throat, and jerked his chin in the direction of the back lawn. "Well, he's waiting for you then. Put your shirt back on, you heathen."

Damian gave a little smirk at the sound of his own words on his older brother's lips and obeyed. He had an ultimate destination in mind, had been called back for one reason and one reason alone.

The pillar of stone in the backyard was directly between the stones devoted to Thomas and Martha Wayne. Damian ran his fingers over the letters carved there, before resting his head against the cool stone. "You called me home, Father?"

* * *

_"In the quiet morning, when the earth holds still . . . I'm coming home."_

_- Shannon LaBrie; "Calls Me Home"_


	29. Are You Always this Sentimental?

Written for **Anonymous** – _"After centuries of exposure to Lazarus pits, Ra's al Ghul's genes have mutated and have been passed down to Damian through Talia. Although he may appear dead for a while, especially while his wounds are so dire, Damian's genes will allow him to come back to life at least once."_

* * *

It was only when everyone else had collapsed out of exhaustion that Alfred dared retreat to the medical bay and his youngest charge. The small body would need to be cleaned and prepared for burial. That was Alfred's task, and one that he would surrender to no other.

He pulled back the blood-stained sheet and took one small limp hand in his own. If only Alfred had not allowed the little boy to leave the Cave … if only Alfred had not encouraged his ridiculous quest … if Alfred had responded to Tim's call personally …

They were all horribly futile wishes, and butlers did not deal in might-have-beens.

Alfred leaned forward to place a kiss upon the cheek of a boy that he had been proud to help raise, and he was compensated with the faintest puff of breath against his own cheek.

Startled, Alfred leaned back, raising a hand to his face as if it could shield him from such knowledge, but already Alfred can see the erratic rise and fall of the small chest. The sheet had been red with blood hours after the event; the wound had never stopped sluggishly seeping blood.

Master Damian had always healed quickly.

Alfred leapt for the blood supply and his surgery kit. There was no time to wake the others or explain; a gift this precious could not be squandered. He labored for most of the day while his loved ones slept, desperate to keep that frail heartbeat from failing a second time. Constantly checking that the little pained breaths did not cease, Alfred had no time to ruminate on the effects of the Lazarus Pit or the unnatural side-effects of Damian's DNA.

He had one mission and one mission only—to save the life and body of his child.

Alfred's reward came at sundown long before the others woke. It came in the form of a small dark hand closing over his own pale ones as they stitched lesser cuts; it came with a soft whisper of "Pennyworth."

* * *

_"Are you always this sentimental?"_

_- Simon Tam; Joss Whedon's __Firefly_


	30. Sequel - A Good Day

Sequel to **Are You Always this Sentimental?**

* * *

Ruefully, Alfred considers himself lucky that Damian had slept through the first two days of recovery. It had allowed the healing process to get a firm grasp on the tiny frame of the boy wonder.

Now came the futile task of keeping Damian from stressing his body further.

Thank goodness for accelerated healing.

Alfred moves swiftly to pluck his young charge from the stairs. To the young master's great displeasure, Alfred is not yet so old that he cannot carry the little boy back to his bedroom.

"There is work to do, Pennyworth," Damian protests, his voice still strained and choked from badly abused vocal chords. "Leviathan is still out there, and …"

"… and your Father is handling it, young man," Alfred counters, surreptitiously patting Damian's back gently to make sure that the foolish child hasn't pulled any stitches. "Your work is to recover swiftly and _completely_."

"I am fine," Damian growls as his hard-earned progress vanishes rapidly over the butler's shoulder.

"You are highly medicated," Alfred corrects gently, easing the damaged body back into bed. Logic does not always win over the little boy who firmly believes that he knows best, and Alfred applies sentiment instead. "My dear boy, you frightened us all quite badly. Please allow us to reassure ourselves just a little longer," he appealed, smoothing sweat-damp hair back from Damian's face and tucking the covers more securely around the thin form.

Emotion is still disconcerting to the child, and Damian agrees hastily to avoid further outpouring of affection. As Master Richard still insists upon regular cuddling, Damian may be overly saturated by this point.

The Manor has seen a great many heroes come and go in the past week.

Superboy had retrieved Mistress Cassandra and Mistress Stephanie almost immediately, but the rest of the Titans dropped in the very next day. Squire had flown back to the states while Commissioner Gordon broke his own rules to confirm Robin's survival. Superman and the rest of the League were regular fixtures in Gotham as the Bats recovered from a near-miss that could have devastated them all, and no one had yet explained exactly how Master Jason escaped Leviathan's grasp, but the Outsiders were camped out in the East Wing. More determined than all the rest, a little boy from Gotham appeared on the doorstep and simply refused to leave.

Ra's al Ghul, himself, had dropped in for a visit … and while Alfred wouldn't dream of letting on, the unobtrusive presence of ninja in the Manor has been greatly reassuring.

"Prince of Gotham," Alfred murmurs, stroking one feverish cheek. The soft breath against the inside of his wrist is something to treasure. "Should all four of you be safe and whole simultaneously, the world might stop spinning from the shock."

Damian blinks tiredly. "Don't be ridiculous, Pennyworth."

The effort from his trek down the hall has clearly worn the boy out. Even if Damian had made it to the Cave, he would have found himself asleep in his Father's oversized chair before long with his small head pillowed against the Bat emblem across the man's chest.

Master Bruce could be somewhat overprotective of an injured bird.

They all are.

Alfred lets himself out once certain that the boy's slumber is genuine. He tries not to smile as he descends the staircase with the sound of the door cracking open once more, and the butler certainly doesn't turn around.

He will have to employ a ninja or two to assist him in carrying three lunch trays up in a few hours. It won't be the first time this week that Alfred Pennyworth found Mistress Cassandra and Master Timothy sleeping on either side of their younger brother after an early morning patrol.

Master Damian will find it difficult to evade his guardians' supervision for some time yet.

* * *

_"I had a good day."_

_- Mal Reynolds; Joss Whedon's __Firefly_


	31. We Had a Complicated Childhood

Written for **angryriceball** – _"Can we perhaps see some of Gotham's villains step in? After all if the Bats go bad after losing a Robin again it's bad for them too."_

* * *

No one expected the icy blast that froze the Fatherless' hand to the sword or the vines that sprang forth through glass and tile to pin the strong arm back. Robin could only mutter an outraged protest as Harley-Quinn scooped him up like a baby and retreated to the Riddler's side as the man in green watched the melee idly.

The Penguin took up guarding the fallen Nightwing as Scarecrow, Bane and Clayface worked together to pull Red Robin free of the wreckage and Two-Face put a permanent double-tapped end to the Leviathan's best soldier.

"Your communicator, Birdie?" the Riddler requested coolly. The Boy Wonder handed it over reluctantly, and was rewarded with being placed upon his own feet once more. Harley-Quinn kept one arm around him though in a mock-comfort and perhaps a means to keep the wounded boy on his feet. Robin looked to shove her off, then subsided as he took in her old costume with confusion.

Likewise, the Riddler, Two-Face, Mr. Freeze … all of the villains had taken on their classic costumes. This was an important day, and only the right attire would suit. They were working together in a way that benefited the Batman, and that made no sense to the little Robin until the Riddler began to outline his grand plan.

_"Riddle me this, riddle me that … who's afraid of the Big … Bad … Bat?"_

Talia's protest was inaudible at this distance. The Riddler approved; he didn't care for her grand scheme in the least.

_"Answer: We are."_ The Riddler gave a little chuckle. _"You see, we've done this once before, Miss al Ghul. Robin dies and the Bat flies—alone and mad. No one's keen on a second trip 'round that bend, m'dear. We have a good thing going in Gotham, and Leviathan will simply have to butt out."_

The Riddler twirled his cane casually under one arm, switching hands with the communicator so he could run a fond hand over Robin's dark head. He almost lost a finger for his trouble, but that just makes it all the better. Batman and Robin will owe him—owe all of them now.

_"Robin is ours … and if you don't believe me, perhaps you'd like to consult the expert that I've taken the liberty of directing to your door?"_

The Joker's laugh comes through the communicator loud and clear. Robin made a grab for the device, and the Riddler obligingly crouched to his level in order to share the communicator without having to give up his control of the situation.

_"Like I told the Black Mask all those years ago … Nobody but me kills a Robin and gets away with it; I'm still going for that full set."_

A problem for a later day, but for now, the Riddler supposed that the boy didn't need to hear his mother's final moments. He flicks the communicator off, and nods in the direction of fast-approaching Bat.

"Harley, if you would to reunite father and son? Quickly?"

* * *

_"We had a complicated childhood."_

_- Simon Tam; Joss Whedon's __Firefly_


	32. Empire of Dirt

Written for **tarrinatopaz** – _"Hurt" by Johnny Cash_

* * *

_What have I become, my sweetest friend?_

_Everyone I know goes away in the end._

No one could be Batman forever, but Bruce had tried.

By the time that the last Wayne found the courage to step down, there was no one left to inherit the cowl. Dick and Tim, Stephanie and Cassandra … they had all perished in the fight for Gotham. Each death was a grim echo of those that came before.

Jason was still out there somewhere, but not on speaking terms with Bruce. Barbara had become the newest Commissioner, married to the job and to Gotham just like Jim and Bruce in their youth. The past seemed doomed to repeat in all of its misery-inducing patterns.

Alfred and the Joker were all that Bruce had left. He didn't want that for Jason or Babs.

_And you could have it all—my empire of dirt._

_I will let you down. I will make you hurt._

Gotham was unchanged. Even with the total devotion of Bruce's lifetime, the city remained the way it had been on the fateful night when an eight year old boy was orphaned … dark, grimy, a haven of crime that one man could never hope to root out single-handedly.

Batman, Inc. had fallen not long after Damian.

Then one-by-one his other allies died or left to fight the good fight elsewhere. Bruce had shoved them all away in the painful aftermath of Damian's death; it was both the best and worst thing he had ever done for his children.

Until today.

_If I could start again, a million miles away …_

The device would alter the flow of time. It would take him back and allow Bruce to answer Talia's ultimatum differently. He could choose differently this time around. He could choose his son, and leave the city to the dozen protectors that rose in his brief absence. They would protect Gotham; Bruce would protect Damian.

It was the selfish choice, but it couldn't be worse than the world Bruce had now.

_I would keep myself. I would find a way._


	33. The World's One and Only Truth

Written for **tharrow** – _"Damian's soul is contained in the Ouroboros cube, waiting until he's most needed to release him?"_

* * *

Within, there is no more Batman. Within, there is only Bruce Wayne.

Batman has no place here within the Ouroboros Cube.

Bruce takes a step closer to the door, and crouches next to the small form resting there. Damian looks up at him curiously. _"Father?"_ he asks as if no time has passed at all since that awful day. He looks exactly the same; the years that have aged Bruce and all the others haven't passed within the cube.

The last decade has nearly been the ruin of them all.

Leviathan, like Talia, is eternal.

Batman must be as well, and Bruce Wayne is mortal.

Bruce will never swing from the rooftops again. As fit as he now feels in this place, injury and age have sidelined him in the outside world. He has once more passed the cowl to his young ward, Dick Grayson. And Bruce has every faith in Dick's ability to go on without him … to bring Batman to life in the shadows of Gotham as a symbol of justice and the night.

But Batman cannot stand alone. In the immortal words of Tim Drake, Batman needs a Robin.

_"Damian."_

Bruce can return Dick's Robin to him—the son and sidekick that they had once shared. He holds the Ouroboros Cube, a symbol of the natural cycle and endings turned to beginnings. Its location ten years ago is no accident; Damian has rested within its confines while Bruce waged his war against Leviathan. Now, it is Damian's turn to fight and one day in the far-off future … to don the cowl himself.

Damian has waited here patiently, and now Bruce is here to replace him.

Equivalent Exchange.

Heroes rise, and heroes fall.

Heroes fall, and heroes rise.

_Damian rises._

* * *

_"Humankind cannot gain something without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. This is Alchemy's First Law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only, truth."_

_- Alphonse Elric; Hiromu Arakawa's __Fullmetal Alchemist_


End file.
